


Ten Weeks at Sea

by eretria



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boats and Ships, First Kiss, First Time, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resolved Sexual Tension, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eretria/pseuds/eretria
Summary: Ten weeks at sea: Enough time for bones to heal and relationships to change. With himself. With Nico. With DaVinci. With God.No one said it would be easy.(Set between the season 2 episodes "The Fall from Heaven" and "The Enemies of Man")
Relationships: Girolamo Riario/Zita, Leonardo da Vinci/Girolamo Riario, Nico & Girolamo Riario
Comments: 45
Kudos: 40





	1. Minus three days

**Author's Note:**

> _This is the last story that my writing partner and friend of the past twenty years, Auburn, has ever beta-read and encouraged me to write. She was never into the fandom, but that did not stop her from being there, steadfast, all the way.  
>  So, this is for her.   
> I wish you could see the finished story. And I miss you, wifey. I miss you so much._
> 
> _A thank you that could not be bigger goes to murron who provided the second, in-depth beta-read which made the story so much better and helped me find my footing with Riario's spiritual crisis and encouraged me to delve deeper into Nico's and Riario's friendship. She also gently encouraged me to open the file again after Auburn passed. Without her, this story would not be here._

**Minus three days**

"Your fates are intertwined," Ima says.

***

The moon is large and wrong in colour in this foreign land. Still, it shines its familiar silver-blue light on his acts. On his raw shouts of rage upon his kills. On the hot rush of elation that runs through his veins after every blow that hits its mark. The cornfield is wet with rain and blood.

He kills three men to keep DaVinci alive that night. He kills them so he's not killed himself. He survives so DaVinci doesn't die. They should matter little to him, considering the long line of kills he has performed for the Holy Father. The ferociousness in his killing unsettles him, however. It's not clean and precise and necessitated by faith or ordered by the Church. It's dirty, messy and graceless. Monstrous.

The moon sinks and takes its light with it. It is the pale dawn that confirms his true nature as a monster: The knife slides in between Zita's ribs easily, so easily, the way he has done to nameless others many times. It should feel different, not the same. It shouldn't be easy. He is taking her _life_ and she is guiding his hand, allowing him, offering herself willingly, a lamb to the slaughter, Isaac absolving Abraham.

"You must."

He's holding her as she bleeds out, wailing against the choice he makes, the choice she confirms, allows him to make. Her lifeblood trickles through his fingers, warm, so warm, the way her entire being is: Warm and fierce in her choices and decisions. Unbroken, unwavering. But dying. _Dying_ , bleeding out and it's his hand that guides the knife, his hand that kills the woman he loves. He weeps, bitter, angry tears over what might have been and never will be now. It's all for the Book, and for the first time, he asks himself if it's worth it.

 _Zita_.

She speaks of the Queen of Sheba. Of the plans she had. He would have made her his queen, once they returned to Italy. Together, they could have taken on anything. Together, they would have been an unstoppable force. Their children would have been kings and queens. Instead, she's bleeding out and he is alone now, alone without her faith and support and love.

A howl climbs up inside his throat, over the tears and the sobs. Zita is dying and he is pitying himself more than he pities her, pities what they may have been and what he will never have now and he hates himself for it. Hates DaVinci.

Her voice echoes in his head. "You have told me again and again: DaVinci must live."

DaVinci lives. The Book is almost within their grasp. But at what cost?

He can't throw away Zita's sacrifice, no matter how much he wants to strangle DaVinci in his sleep the night that they spend together in the Incan cell. So he buries the hate. Buries the pain, the physical pain and that of his soul. He buries everything the way he always has.

***

"You cannot bury her," Ima says. "my people's law forbids burying the enemy. The enemy must be forgotten, not remembered through a grave."

Riario rises slowly. His right hand goes to the now concealed dagger he took from Zita's body as he straightens and takes the few steps toward Ima, ready to ram it into her heart should she keep talking. Zita's ghost lingers just behind Ima, the lustre of her skin radiant as though she were alive. He wonders if he is losing his mind or if she has come to haunt him. Either would be fitting. Deserved.

"Riario –"

He raises his left hand in a commanding gesture to silence DaVinci.

"She," he says to Ima, his hand so tight around the dagger's hilt that he can feel the ridges in the gold cut into his palm, "was not an enemy." It is hard to separate his clenched teeth long enough to push the words out. "She had no quarrel with your people."

Ima raises her head. The golden headdress glistens in the torchlight. "She came with you to take the Book."

It would be so easy to just kill Ima now, the way he killed Zita. She is close enough and he doubts that the guards would be quick enough to disarm him. Zita's ghost behind Ima shakes her head, though and he forcibly relaxed his hand. "Then it is me you should punish, not her."

Ima's smile is sad and her next words nearly take his feet out from under him. "I believe your punishment already fits your crime."

"Why not me?" Riario hears DaVinci ask through the rushing of blood in his ears. "Why punish him and not me?"

"Leo!" the Dog hisses, outraged. "If she wants him punished, fucking well let her."

"We are the Sun and the Moon," is all Ima answers.

"Then I, as the Sun," DaVinci says and steps between Ima and Riario, "demand a burial for our companion. She was innocent of any crime. She was not an enemy."

"He is right," Nico chimes in, stepping up as well. "She was a good person."

"She loved him," Ima says, and it sounds like something unpleasant, like an accusation.

"Love is not a crime," DaVinci declares, his voice quiet but full of conviction.

Zita's ghost smiles and reaches out to stroke Riario's head. _'It never is,'_ she murmurs. In front of his mind's eye, the knife sinks into her body again, so easily, with such finality, her skin so warm where his fingers on the hilt touch it. The scent of her blood is thick and cloying, so horribly familiar and so wrong, so wrong. _'I would do it all again.'_ He sways, because she is gone. She will _never_ touch him again and he cannot tell if this is really her ghost saying this or his shameless, needy mind procuring her ghost as means of forgiveness for the unspeakable act he committed. He half hopes that Ima's guards will notice the knife and kill him, but instead, the gold on Ima's headdress tinkles as she moves. "Very well," she says. "You may lay her body to rest. But not inside the city's walls."

So she will be buried in a foreign land, outside even these savage's holy ground, like his mother was buried outside of a church cemetery.

They both deserved so much better.

***

Nico is with him as he kneels at Zita's grave, the grave Riario could not dig into the hard-packed ground, though he tore off his nails and scraped his fingers bloody trying. Nico does not ask questions once, he is simply there, a quiet presence, helping Riario carry the rocks that will soon cover Zita's body.

One of Ima's people gave him a cloth enwrought with golden threads. He places it over her, afraid to hurt her, loath to place one of the heavy, rough-edged rocks directly on her beautiful face.

It becomes harder to breathe with each rock he places on her. She will never smile at him again. Never tease him gently. Never look at him with fond eyes and tell him that she sees grace.

There is no grace. He told her. He warned her. But she insisted and she paid the price for believing in him. He places rocks on her body, building her cairn, weighing down her body and her soul and it is wrong, all so _wrong_ that he wants to scream.

"You killing me now would be more merciful than freedom." Her words, back in Italy, after he'd freed her, echo in his mind, clang around in his head like a broken, cheaply made churchbell.

He brought her to this new world, the Lord saved her from the Basilisk's wreck, and his greed for the Book of Leaves got her killed after all. She would have been better off in Italy. Even a life spent on the run was better than a life shortened so brutally by the man she thought loved her.

He takes the cross the Incans took from him when they prepared him for the trials from the chain around his neck and rests it on the cloth over her heart. The heart that will never beat again because of him. He will never feel her against his skin, warm, soft, yet steel-spined. Never again. Never again.

He falls back into a crouch, the knuckles of his fist pressed against his eyes stop himself from weeping.

Nico finishes piling the rocks on her body without him. He begins to murmur the requiem under his breath.

_Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis._

How can eternal light shine upon Zita now that she is buried under these rocks?

_In memoria aeterna erit justus: ab auditione mala non timebit._

There are no evil reports on her that she can fear. She was the better one of the two of them, she saw light where he only felt darkness, she saw goodness in the blackness of his soul. Her ability to forgive, to believe, to trust and to give without asking in return had humbled him from the start. He misses her, knows that what was possibly good in his soul was ripped from him when she drew her last breath.

The Dog, Zoroaster, would claim Riario had no soul to begin with anyway. Riario is not sure the man is wrong.

Though the words ring hollow, he joins Nico's prayer.

_Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur._

The written Book in which all is contained. He shivers. Is it like the Book of Leaves? Will Zita be the one to see it before him? Was killing her necessary so at least one of them could lay hand on the Book of Leaves?

***

Despite his promise, he doesn't kill DaVinci. Can't, and that more than anything eats him up from the inside, even as he follows DaVinci into the depths of the Vault of Heaven. Zita's ghost lingers at every corner. Her voice, humming the songs of her homeland, guides and haunts him at the same time. Even in her death, she is still convinced that his quest is the right cause. When he wavered, she was always the stronger one.

So he keeps going, keeps chasing after the Book as if his life depends on it, because he must, he must find it, or it will all have been for nothing. God willing, Zita's sacrifice was not in vain.


	2. Minus One Day

****

**Minus one day**

A part of Riario dies with Zita. The other part dies in front of the shrine for the Book of Leaves. The shrine that is empty. There is no Book of Leaves. The brazen head mocks him, annuls everything he sacrificed to get here. Zita died for nothing.

Riario stares at the brazen head that speaks with DaVinci's mother's voice.

It _is_ the Lord's cruellest joke. Teasing him with knowledge, with the power to renew people's faith, to find absolution for himself and then leaving him empty-handed, a fool who sacrificed everything.

This is the God he believed in? Laughing at him, throwing everything he worked for in his face? Zita. He sacrificed _Zita_ for this. For nothing. _Nothing_. His belief in a just God who rewards those who fight for him carves itself out of his chest, his ribs and heart and soul. It leaves a gaping hole in his soul that quickly fills up with a horrifying rage.

Riario jumps off the mountain into nothingness, cursing the Lord's name for forsaking him after a lifetime of believing in him.

He hangs on to DaVinci's flying contraption, half-convinced he will die and welcoming it, half-spiteful, wanting to show the God that abandoned him that he can survive this. He finds he cannot pray. What was as natural as breathing is gone. He is hollow inside; his faith splintered, nothing but spite and anger left.

Zita's voice echoes in his head as he glides through the air, the wind whipping him in the face, _'The further we travel from our gods, the harder it becomes to pay tribute to them.'_

He is as far away from everything he believed in as he has ever been. Maybe he already lost God on the way across the ocean. Maybe God stopped caring, stopped watching out for him.

The ropes cut into his hands.

His companion, the woman he loved, slain by his hands for a false idol. Years of his life, thrown away. His ambition, his cause, his hope for forgiveness, gone. His reputation, his status, his wealth, everything snatched away by the cruel hand of a cruel God.

He is alone, here in the sky, with the ground rapidly getting closer. Shamefully, he fears for his life, even though he has nothing left to live for. He has lost everything.

He finds he cannot tell which loss hurts more.


	3. Day One

****

**Day One**

The bone has pierced flesh and skin. For all that the pain was excruciating when it first broke, it is almost worse now.

Riario embraces the pain. He deserves it. _Zita_.

He can't kneel to repent, so he does as the monks taught him (beat into him) and lies face down on the deck near the ship's bow, arms stretched out, his forehead pressed against the rough planks. The men step over him when they pass, laughing, talking, ignoring him, but they're oddly respectful. The gentle sway of the ship, its soft creaking and the flapping of the sails in the wind make it hard to stay awake and pray. Try to pray. As he had sailed through the air, a small part of him clung to the hope that maybe, if he survived this, it would be a sign of God's will. It had to mean something, hadn't it? If God had no plan for him, he would just let him die.

Lying on the deck of a carrack, on planks that smell of algae, wet wood and salt water, with a broken leg and a broken spirit, he's no longer sure. Maybe it is just another wicked joke.

He's tired, body and soul. When he gets too close to sleep, though, he moves his leg in DaVinci's brace, the pain lightning bright and nauseating. The sun sinks on him. He remains in his position, awake.

"This isn't healthy." Nico steps close and doesn't leave. His feet are visible in the gentle glow of the lamp he must be holding. Though his words are spoken harshly, Nico sounds concerned. "You should come inside and rest. The days may be warm here, but the nights are damn cold."

To drown out the words, the kindness under the bluster, Riario murmurs under his breath, _"Confiteor Deo omnipotentiet vobis, fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, opere et omissione: Mea culpa. Mea culpa."_ He should be slapping his hand against his chest, he thinks, but the position forbids it, so he drops his forehead against the planks instead, a dull sound that makes his teeth rattle in his skull. Zita. _Zita_. He begs her shade, standing just at the edge of his vision. _"Mea maxima culpa."_

"Stop, in the name of God, stop." Restricting hands against his shoulder.

 _"Mea culpa."_ What does it even mean? _Culpa._ Shame. Guilt. He knows the words, but grapples helplessly for the meaning to resonate the way it usually does. The only thing he feels guilty about is killing Zita. He keeps trying to thump his forehead against the wood. Maybe the new pain will make him see more clearly where his mind is adrift amidst a thickening mist. Make him understand again. Believe again, the way he did before.

"Jesus, you stubborn bastard. I should just leave you here to rot." Nico does not leave, though. Somewhere, toward the ship's stern, men are laughing, drunk already. Without warning, there's a cool hand between the planks and his hot, hot forehead. Then hand disappears again. "Fuck, you're _burning_."

 _"Mea."_ He can't get further than that in the prayer because he's lost … not just the words, but his faith in salvation. Zita is dead. There was no Book. The Lord was mocking him. But he needs… He needs to try. Needs to find his place again. The prayer must guide him back. It must. If only to find a way for Zita to forgive him. Because DaVinci lied. He lied. She cannot have forgiven him. _"Mea."_ Forced out. _"Maxima."_ The word is like a rotting thing in his mouth. It tastes of cold death. The death he so easily deals. _"Culpa."_

Shivers wrack Riario's body, the night's chill he ignored until now sinks into him, into his flesh and very bone. There's no God for the likes of him. He's alone. All that's left is himself and the crushing guilt, the loss, the pain, and a bone-deep fear of being truly alone.

Frantic in speed and cadence, Riario keeps murmuring the same verses over and over again until even the words no longer sound familiar. Zita's shade kneels next to him and he wants to bury his face in her lap and weep like a child. But she is cold. So cold. Her shade is cruel and not like his Zita at all. Sister Ignatia stands behind her, her face unreadable.

More hands touch him. Voices he can't make out, agitated. Maybe he's finally in the way of the men and they will remove him. Maybe Zoroaster will throw him overboard. He's past caring. Maybe hell will be warm at least and provide company. The unfinished _Confiteor_ becomes a lullaby. He slips under.

***

The splash of cool salt water shocks Riario out of the haze engulfing him. He coughs, splutters. He’s soaked. Anger spikes in reaction. Eventually, he asks through clenched teeth, "Isn't it a little late for torture?"

There’s wet, rough wood under his front, face and palms, a splinter worming its way under his middle finger's nail, his leg is screaming in agony, but he won't give the men the satisfaction of uttering one sound. He concentrates on the splinter, makes one pain drive out the other. He's on the deck of the ship.

"We're trying to lower the fever down before it kills you," DaVinci says, his voice sounding odd in a way Riario's fever-addled mind can't pinpoint. More water is poured over him, clearing his mind. There's a certain malice in the fervour of it that DaVinci's tone lacked. Zoroaster, then. Riario breathes slow and low. Hate, he knows. Hate, he can deal with. It is better to be hated than loved. Zita loved him and where did that lead her? He keeps his eyes closed against the burn of the salt water trickling from his hair.

"Why?" It would be fitting if he died now. There's nothing to go back to in Italy. He will be ostracised, coming back without the Book. There's no one. He killed her for nothing. _Zita._ Her ghost has been sitting next to him on the deck for hours, alternating between soothing and condemning him, her voice turning from a gentle lullaby to a banshee's shriek.

Sister Ignatia is just behind her the entire time, watching silently, murmuring words he cannot hear.

"There's an excellent question," another voice says, derision dripping from the syllables. So it _is_ Zoroaster.

"Stop it, Zo." Nico.

Riario lets the side of his face sink against the slippery planks and bites back on a bitter smile. What an unlikely ally the boy who had once threatened to torture and kill him has become. Riario tries to open his eyes and is blinded by the light of another lamp hitting Nico's hair. Maybe he's an angel, come to punish him for his sins.

_H_ _e will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him._

Bright, golden Uriel, here to cleanse his blackened soul.

He squeezes his eyes shut again and thinks that the others should be averting their eyes as well. One must not stare at the Lord's angels, Sister Ignatia reminds him. Not lest he wants to end up like Lot's wife.

"What is he on about?" Zoroaster asks.

A hand on his neck, his face: gentle, caring. _Zita_. An anchor in the darkness he's floating in. She's warm and giving again, the way he remembers her being, her spectre no longer cruel. Oh, Christ, what has he done. "Zita," he whispers. He reaches for her. Forgive me, forgive me. "Mea culpa, mea culpa… "

"Delirious," DaVinci words sound far away, meandering and drifting off like the final notes of a song in the high Gothic ceilings of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. "Don't expect him to make sense."

Zita smiles at him. "You should rest, my lord."

Sister Ignatia cups his cheek, gently familiar. "Sleep, Girolamo."

***

"There must be a better way to do cool him down than to dump buckets full of water over him." Nico says to DaVinci. "Water that isn't even that cold." They are still close to the coast and the ocean here is much warmer than Nico had ever expected.

"We could throw him overboard," Zo says, chewing on one of the leathery leaves the rest of the _Sentinel_ 's crew had been given by the Incans they traded with. Zo sounds a little off, like he's close to drunk. "Plenty of water there."

Zo is right, Nico thinks. They would be rid of the problem and have one less mouth to feed on the voyage back. The mere idea turns his stomach, though.

"If you have nothing useful to add, shut the hell up." DaVinci sounds surprisingly annoyed. He stares into the murky darkness beyond the ship's bow and Nico can hear the cogs in DaVinci's mind turning. "Though, actually –" A grin spreads over DaVinci’s face and Nico feels the familiar tingle of anticipation in his stomach, always present when his Maestro's enthusiasm carries him along. "Hah! A barrel!"

"You want a drink now?" Zo asks. He makes that face again. His inevitable 'Leo is crazy' face. God, but Nico missed this in the past months. Just as inevitably, Zo shrugs and says, "It's not the worst idea."

It really isn't. Nico is not much for alcohol, but he had learned to appreciate the wine aboard the _Basilisk_. At least that made the algae-infested water slightly more palatable. Maybe Riario will consent to drink a little.

"Arrrrgh, no, I need the barrel, not its contents. Or, at least not the present contents."

DaVinci’s plan dawns on Nico quicker than on Zo and he runs for Vincente, the ship's cooper, before DaVinci gets it into his head to have Zo re-stack the cured meat. He remembers Vincente talking about having a few barrels in storage just in case they can collect water on a rainy day.

When he and Vincente roll the empty barrel to where Riario is lying on the fo'csle, clawing at and beseeching demons only he can see, Zo starts to chortle.

"Are you going to turn him into Diogenes?"

"I believe," DaVinci says, "That Diogenes lived in an empty barrel." He seems to have manufactured some kind of external pump by using the ship's chain pump while Nico was gone and gestures impatiently for the barrel to be placed in front of him. "I intend to fill it."

"And then stuff him inside like a pickle?" Zo's laughter is loud. "Please make sure to draw this. I want to show it to the bastard if he survives."

Nico watches as the pump fills the barrel with sea water. "Maestro, won't the salt water be bad for his wound?"

"Quite the opposite. It will cleanse it and hopefully wash out all the dirt we accidentally stuffed in there when we set the bone."

"But is it cold enough to affect his fever?"

"Arab medical texts suggest that it is better to not have extreme temperature difference. This should bring his temperature down more gently."

"Gentle," Zo scoffs, "is not what he deserves."

"Zo, I love you like a brother, but if you keep this up, I will have you gagged and stuffed in the hold," DaVinci snaps at him.

Zo sniffs. "Good thing that's Captain Sindona's call."

The barrel – not quite reaching up to Nico's shoulder – fills quickly. When it's three quarters full, the sea water foaming, DaVinci stops the pump and hands the crank back to an anxious looking sailor named Flavio who mutters curses under his breath. Nico can't blame him. On the _Basilisk_ , a few days before it sank, the chain pump had stopped working for a few frightful hours until the carpenter, the cooper and the boatswain had managed to repair it. The _Basilisk_ took on water fast, far too fast for Nico's liking, and the idea that the _Sentinel_ might do the same is not comforting.

"Here, help me get him inside," DaVinci says. He kneels next to Riario and tries to lift him up but fails and falls back. Sick though he is, Riario fights him like a man possessed, muttering in an even more gravelly voice than usual, something Nico can't make out. The mutters become wild shouts of rage when DaVinci reaches for him again. "You will not lay a hand on her!" he shouts.

Nico picks out Zita's name and a sudden, sharp stab of pain lances through him. She would have known how to calm Riario down. In the few weeks aboard the _Basilisk_ , Nico had come to appreciate and admire her fierce loyalty, her knife-sharp sense of humour and her quiet, steadfast way of getting exactly what she wanted. Her manipulation had been different from Riario's, warmer, kinder, but no less effective. He'd come to like her. He could see why Riario fell for her. That he had to kill her to get to the damn Book of Leaves makes Nico hate the Incan High Priest even more.

"If you need someone to club him over the head, let me know."

Nico closes his eyes briefly and prays for the strength to ignore Zo – and to ignore the voice inside of his head that insists that he and his maestro would have a far easier time helping Riario if they just let Zo have his way.

Nico crouches on Riario's other side, careful not to touch him yet. "Shouldn't we take off his clothes?"

"Thanks to Zo's enthusiasm, he's wet anyway, so it won't make much of a difference. Besides, I don't want to take off the brace."

Nico looks at the barrel and gnaws on his lower lip. "I think you might have to. He's bigger than the barrel, and he won't be able to bend his knee with the brace on."

The skin around DaVinci's nose goes a little white. "Fuck, you're right." He scrubs a hand across his face. "We run the risk of breaking the bone again."

"It's that or him dying of the fever, right?"

"No one will die of anything," DaVinci snaps. "Not tonight. Not while I'm around."

It's a bold statement, though a very DaVinci one, of course. After the _Basilisk_ , however, Nico knows how fragile life is, how quickly the sea takes what is hers. A wave crashes against the _Sentinel_ and makes the barrel slide across the deck a few inches as if to prove Nico's point. Not even DaVinci can put himself between the sea and any one person on this ship.

They manage to get Riario into a standing position somehow – he fights it like a cornered alley cat – claws, jabs, even tries to bite. He's surprisingly strong for someone so fever-ridden. Eventually, DaVinci clamps both of Riario's arms to his body and shouts for Zo to get a rope. "I'm sorry," Nico hears his maestro whisper. "I would have preferred not to do this."

Zo binds Riario's arms with great enthusiasm, tighter than the situation merits. When Riario tries to kick against Nico, he seems to forget about his leg. The following scream of pain is bone-chilling. Nico doesn't understand how he is still conscious.

"Enough!" DaVinci shouts eventually. He takes Riario's face between both of his hands and moves in close to try and shake the other man out of his madness. "We're trying to help you, you stubborn mule."

Riario blinks and stops fighting. His entire body goes slack and Nico has to hold him up to stop him from falling. Looked at from the side, his eyes are fever-bright, but he seems more lucid than before. "Why?" A gravelly, half bitten-off question.

"There's been enough death," DaVinci repeats. He doesn't move away, the position of both man's faces strangely intimate. "Do you hear me? You're not dying while I am around."

"You said that there might come the day you were forced to kill me."

"It's not today." DaVinci lets go Riario's face as though only now realising how close they are. "Now get in the fucking barrel before I stuff you in like a pickle."

It's such a bizarre thing to say that Nico can't stop the snicker. DaVinci looks at him as if he's forgotten Nico was there, but eventually grins and remarks ruefully, "Took notes from Zo."

Riario never regains the fight, even when DaVinci takes off the brace, something he endures with stubborn silence. Nico sees his jaw work as his teeth clench against the pain though, sees him grow paler and paler. Riario's hands claw into the rope, the skin under his fingernails just as white as the skin under his eyes.

"Can we take off the rope again?" Nico asks.

DaVinci shakes his head. "Better safe than sorry."

Once Riario is in the barrel, dunked unceremoniously by DaVinci, his eyes roll back in his head and he passes out. Nico has to hold up his chin to keep his head above the water. His black hair billows in it like some dark mermaid's.

DaVinci slips down next to the barrel, back pressed against its wood, head resting against the iron ring around the barrel's belly. "Fuck."

"What?"

"He's taken everything without losing consciousness until now. We probably did break his damned leg anew. Which, according to my studies, had already started to heal."

"It was to be expected though, wasn't it?"

"Doesn't make it any easier to deal with now. Depending on how badly the mal-alignment is, we may have to re-set the bone."

"One step after the other, Maestro," Nico says. He swallows against the salty saliva that begins to pool under his tongue at the mere thought of what 're-setting the bone' means. "Isn't that what Maestro Verrocchio always says?"

"Because that works so well with me." DaVinci huffs. He tips his head to look up. "Thank you, Nico."

Nico shrugs and re-adjusts his grip on Riario. His breath is shallow against Nico's wrist. "For what?"

"For being here. For staying alive. For not wishing me to hell because I abandoned you."

Nico's shoulders knot when he thinks of the many times during the voyage on the _Basilisk_ that he cursed DaVinci, all the while trying to keep a brave face and stay loyal. Riario's teachings had been the only thing that kept him from going mad down in the brig. That and Zita's visits, her gentle voice humming captivating, unfamiliar songs to keep him company while he ate the food she brought.

He aches at the thought of her. Her kindness had been a balm and now she’s dead. No wonder Riario is so haunted. She must haunt him. As she should. But in all fairness, she should be haunting DaVinci as well. They both searched for the Book, driven to the point of near-madness. Without the other, neither would have made it to the Vault of Heaven. Without Zita's sacrifice, they both would have died. It's such a fucked up mess, all of it.

"That's a long pause," DaVinci states, ever observant. He exhales explosively. "I'm sorry, Nico. I'm so sorry."

"You saved Lorenzo," Nico says and tries to keep his voice even. He doesn’t want to explain about Zita to anyone, even DaVinci. He particularly doesn't want to explain how he doubted DaVinci, down in the _Basilisk's_ brig. How he'd hated DaVinci for not saving him. "He's more important than I am."

"Nico."

He doesn't want to have this conversation now. Not when the man who taught him to doubt DaVinci and believe in himself and his own worth is held up only by his hands, is at his mercy: to drown or to keep alive. "How much longer should he stay in here?"

DaVinci nods, accepting the not-so-subtle hint. "Until his forehead feels cooler. I'll have to deal with the reason for his fever later."

Nico moves one hand to Riario's forehead and finds it still hot to the touch. "How?"

"He has an infection. I need to fight it."

"But how?"

"I'm sure there will be something that's rotting and mouldy on the ship."

"Mouldy?" Nico echoes. "I thought you were trying to keep him alive?"

DaVinci gets up and rubs his hands. "Watch and learn."


	4. Day Two

**Day Two**

Riario wakes to darkness, even after opening his eyes. There's a blindfold covering his forehead and eyes, damp and heavy. His leg is on fire and when he struggles against the blindfold, his entire body feels heavy and unresponsive.

"Shh, don't move," a voice says. It sounds familiar, but in the haze of pain and fever, he can't quite place it. "Don't aggravate the leg further. We had to take off the brace."

Frantic, Riario tries to remove the blindfold to see who is with him, to at least acknowledge his captor even if he can't fight him right now. He finds his hand captured in mid-process and carefully guided back to his side. Another hand adjusts the damp cloth that isn’t a blindfold at all and swipes his hair back. "You're really not good at following instructions, are you?"

DaVinci. Sounding half-amused and half-aggravated.

Riario relaxes minutely once he recognises the voice. "Pot," he squeezes out of a throat that feels too dry for speaking.

A chortling laugh. "Are you trying to tell me that the pot is calling the kettle black?"

Riario grunts and sinks back against the hard, creaking wood of the bed.

"Charming as ever." There's no venom behind the habitual insult, so Riario doesn't try to remove the cloth again and enjoys the near-darkness instead, the subtle sounds of the ship making its way across the ocean.

He hears DaVinci move, the leather of his breeches squeaking against itself loud in the otherwise silent cabin. The higher sound of water being poured from a carafe into a cup makes him realise how thirsty he is. His hand twitches for the cup before DaVinci's steps have fully reached him again.

"Easy," DaVinci cautions. "Slowly." His hand lifts Riario's head so he can drink from the cup now pressed against his lips. The metal is cool against his cracked lips. DaVinci's hand against the back of his skull is warm. "After all the work of the past days, it would be a shame if you died of getting water into your lungs instead of your stomach."

Riario drinks greedily, like a man in a desert who found an oasis. Water sloshes over his lips and runs down his cheeks and his neck.

"Easy." DaVinci's repeats. His voice, though admonishing, is strangely comforting, even when he inches the cup away. "There's plenty more."

"More," Riario rasps. His voice sounds odd in his own ears. Because the monks beat politeness into him, he adds, "Please."

DaVinci lets Riario's head sink back against the thin pillow, carefully, and dabs at the water on his cheek. In his addle-brained state, Riario notices that nothing DaVinci does here has any kind of cruelty to it, quite the opposite: He's downright gentle. Riario doesn't understand why.

Steps, leaving his side. More water is poured into the cup, then there's a lengthy pause: DaVinci doesn't move again. "I'm sorry," he says after several long moments.

Riario tries to utter a question but only manages a questioning sound. Despite the near-painful thirst, leaden fatigue pulls at his mind and draws him mercilessly toward sleep.

DaVinci's, "For what's about to come," follows Riario into his nightmares.

***

"Is there no other way?" Nico asks.

"It's no good, Nico. He may never walk again if I don't do this."

"Why do you even care?" Zo asks. He sounds aggravated. "Let him crawl for the rest of his life like the snake he is. It's no less than he deserves."

"Maestro's right." Nico is queasy to his stomach to even think of what DaVinci is suggesting, but he sees what Zo doesn't see – DaVinci needs a project. Something to keep his mind busy. And if that's Riario, then that's fine by Nico. DaVinci may have never officially studied medicine, but he is an excellent physician and if he says that the bone will not heal, or heal wrong if he doesn't re-set it, then Nico has no doubt he's right.

He remembers Riario's screams of pain in the forest, his own hands covered in the man's warm blood and the repeated words clanging around in his head, praying for God to not let Riario die. Nico still doesn't fully understand what it was in those weeks on the _Basilisk_ , how Riario managed to gain his trust and his respect, but he has it now and Nico will be damned if he betrays him. "Once Riario is back in Italy, he will need both of his legs to run from Rome."

"Let them catch him," Zo spits.

"Enough!" DaVinci's voice is cutting enough, loud enough that it stops Zo in his tracks. "We're neither killing him, nor letting him die. Nor are we letting him become a cripple."

Zo concedes with a sulky noise.

"Get me Amerigo. Tell him to bring the bag he hides under his pillow."

"What's under his pillow?" Nico asks.

***

"Absolutely fucking not." Amerigo looks from DaVinci to Nico and shakes his head. "I'm not wasting a single drop of my only bottle of Tincture of Opium on that prick."

From behind him, Nico sees Zo step closer with a look on his face Nico can't decipher.

DaVinci stares Amerigo down. "Yes you will."

Amerigo crosses his hands over his chest. "Fucking make me."

"You had Tincture of Opium this entire time?" Nico exclaims angrily. It would have saved Riario excruciating pain, and DaVinci a sleepless night listening to Riario gnashing his teeth in pain. As well as Nico having to listen to DaVinci complain about it. He'd come this close to telling DaVinci that he was the one to volunteer giving up his bunk for Riario and that no one made him.

DaVinci stands slowly. "What do you think your men would say if they knew you had it when on the way here, Marcello lost his thumb to the sail's rope in the storm? He was in a lot of pain, wasn't he? And yet you kept it to yourself." He tsks.

Next to him, Zo bristles and gives Amerigo a hard stare. "You what?"

Amerigo's crossed arms look more like he's hugging himself protectively now.

"What would Marcello say, hm? Worse, what would Captain Sindona say?" DaVinci taps his index finger against his lower lip. "He wouldn't have you thrown overboard, would he?"

"All right, all right, fine." Amerigo thrusts the bottle at DaVinci. "But don't you dare use the entire damn bottle. Not on the Roman scum."

Nico looks at Amerigo's retreating form, swaying against the ship's tide, then at Zo. "That was … easy."

DaVinci shrugs. "He has another bottle. Haven't found where yet, but he has it." He winks at Nico. "Besides, the entire bottle would kill several horses. I only need about two teaspoons, or he'll stop breathing."

Zo looks very interested all of a sudden.

"What now, Maestro?"

DaVinci clasps his hands in front of his face and exhales against them. "Now we will cause serious pain, despite the Tincture of Opium." He's looking paler than Nico has seen him in quite some time and that alone makes Nico question if, this time, DaVinci does know what he's doing. "He might just wish for Zo to have killed him in the forest."

Zo reaches for his dagger. "Hey, just say the word and I can –"

"Zo!" Nico and DaVinci say at the same time.

"Fine, let's get to work."

When Nico opens the door to the officer's cabin with clammy hands, Riario's open eyes glitter in the near-darkness.

***

The Tincture of Opium knocks Riario out cold, but as DaVinci cautioned, it only dulls some of the pain and he wakes in the middle of the ordeal, screaming.

White-knuckled, Nico holds Riario down. He's used to the scent of blood by now, but the acute, bright-white pain, the waves of it rolling out from Riario as DaVinci sets the bone make Nico sway and feel sick to his stomach. Christ, the noise it makes - like breaking a chicken bone at dinner, only louder and wetter. Nico thinks he may never eat chicken again. This time, Riario doesn't lose consciousness.

His screams make Nico wish DaVinci had clubbed Riario over the head. It would have been more merciful than this.

No one deserves this, not even Riario. The pope might, but Nico is too queasy to think of that bastard on top of everything else.


	5. Day Five

**Day Five**

Riario spends the next days in an opium haze, drifting in and out of consciousness.

It is pleasant at first, not feeling any pain, but drifting means dreaming, and even before this ordeal, his dreams have always been haunted.

He's a boy again at the monastery, small and alone, a nuisance to the monks, beaten bloody for sneaking into the library. Only sister Ignatia's warm hands provide solace. She teaches him to read and write and shapes his faith into something solid, unwavering, like a protective shield around him. She disappears suddenly and he runs through the monastery's long corridors and high vaulted ceilings, calling for her. His voice echoes, ebbs and rises, twists and turns cruel: a dark monster's roar. Just below, there's the whisper of "killer, killer".

He runs and ends up on the Incan platform. There's Zita, with the knife still in her heart, reaching out for him. He tastes blood when she kisses him.

The vision swirls and Zita turns into his mother, her eyes protruding while he throttles her. They still bulge out when she cradles him against her bosom like an infant and hums a lullaby that sounds wheezing and faint. "My monstrous son."

Amelia, looking at him while Sixtus snaps her neck. Coming after him, a white corpse stretching out her arms for him, her neck at an unnatural angle.

The peasants in Tolfa, closing in on him, their throats slit open, gurgling screams that ask for his blood. _Killer._

It's the image of Sixtus, naked, covered in the blood of the innocent, with snakes coming out of his eyes, mouth and ears that finally has him shaking awake with a scream on his lips, though.

"It's okay, you're safe," a familiar voice says.

Nico.

Riario sinks back against the pillow and concentrates on the rustling of the straw inside of it to calm his stuttering, stumbling, panicked heartbeat. He doesn't deserve to be safe, but it feels good to have Nico by his side.

"Shall I get the Maestro?" Nico asks.

DaVinci? Riario shakes his head. He does not want to have to explain any of the images haunting him.

"How long?" he manages to rasp. His hands shake on the blanket.

"Three days now." Nico feeds Riario the water he didn't ask for but craves. "You've been out of it for most of the time."

Riario forces his sleep-encrusted eyes open and blinks at Nico, who looks faded out, his hair dull; the rings under his eyes dark and bruised. "Have you sat with me this entire time?"

Nico gets up to get more water. He doesn't answer.

Three days means care in the most private way. The fact that Riario is not waking up in his own excrements means that Nico must have gone beyond what compassion required. "Nico?"

A flush tints Nico's fair complexion. "My Maestro's not a good nursemaid."

"And Zoroaster would have strangled me in my sleep, as would the other sailors."

"I had to fend him off a few times," Nico says. A smile kicks up the left corner of his mouth.

"Thank you," Riario says. The words, encompassing more than just protection from the Dog, are inadequate, but they're all he has for the time being.

Nico shrugs. "Are you hungry?"

Riario shakes his head. The mere idea of hard sea biscuits and cured llama meat makes him nauseous.

"You will have to eat eventually if you want your body to heal."

"You are curiously invested in my well-being."

"You taught me to survive. Now I'm making sure you stay alive. Consider it quid pro quo."

Riario inclines his head, acknowledging the answer.

"He checked in on you a couple of times," Nico says after a while. "Said your leg was healing."

Riario doesn't say that it did so before DaVinci managed to re-injure it so badly he needed to resort to this drastic treatment. He does realise that it would be unfair, too. If DaVinci had not managed to lower the fever, he would likely not be here now. He’s seen men whose wits were cooked; he does not want to be one of them. He forces himself to shake off the images of hellfire dancing at the edge of his vision. No more Tincture of Opium, he swears to himself. He’s going to Hell soon enough without visiting it in his nightmares.

"How much do you remember?"

He considers lying to spare the boy, but decides against it. No one, not even Sister Ignatia, spared him anything, and it made him stronger, not weaker, even if it did hurt. "All of it," he says and watches Nico wince. "I might not eat meat with the bone in quite some time."

To his surprise, Nico stifles a laugh.

"I am glad my predicament provides amusement."

Nico sobers – but not fully. "It's just … It was such a ridiculous thing to think. When I heard your bone break, I thought of chicken bones and how I might never touch chicken again."

Riario doesn't fight the smile that lifts the corners of his mouth. "It appears we think along similar lines."

"The Maestro will be insufferable if he hears he managed to turn us both into vegetarians."

Riario shifts to ease some discomfort to his leg. The opium still swirls in his head, providing a respite from the more severe pain he knows he should be in otherwise. "I take it your hero-worship of him has dulled a little?"

"After what he managed in the past weeks?" Nico does not take the bait. He laughs and his eyes are bright: he looks enthusiastic. "Quite the opposite."

"Shame," Riario says. "Your mind was meant for greater things."

Now, the smile on Nico's lips turns into a distasteful frown and Riario regrets having dimmed the light in Nico's eyes. "I doubt that the Church's teachings will be better than his."

He surprises himself with the sentiment, but Riario is inclined to agree. Not a Church led by the current Pope. Nico needs better, wiser teachers who challenge him and see the potential he has. That's something even DaVinci can't provide. He takes Nico for granted.

"Why are you here, Nico?" He asks into the lingering quiet of the room that follows Nico's statement. "Why are you doing this?"

The reply takes Nico several deep breaths. "Because she can't."

The words slice Riario open worse than any instrument of torture could have. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe against the pain that assaults him, physically and mentally.

A gentle hand raises his head and guides a cup against his lips. "You're in pain. Drink."

Nico sounds nothing like Zita, but the words are the same. How many times did she nurse him back to health when the Holy Father had taken the whip to him to show his displeasure?

He wants to say that it's not his body that is in pain, but that would be a lie. His leg aches as much as his heart and mind do. He opens his mouth and drinks, greedy; the bitter aftertaste of the Tincture of Opium thick and cloying on his tongue. It's too late to spit it out now.

When the opium begins to cloud in his mind anew, he thinks he hears Zita sing; her warm alto weaving in between a blaze of dulled colours and rotting smells. Her voice gently pulls at him, guides his mind away from the madness, toward the words spoken near him.

"When she came to visit me in the brig on the _Basilisk_ , she told me that she read to you," Nico says. "To improve her Italian and her Latin. We talked about the stories in the Old Testament."

The Queen of Sheba. Zita's skin. Her heart beating under that soft breast as he rests his head on her chest. Her hands, idling along his naked back. Her voice, humming strange songs from her homeland. Maybe the Queen of Sheba had hummed the same melody to King Solomon? _'I had such plans.'_ Riario presses his fist to his mouth to subdue the sound threatening to break free. With his mind weakened by pain and opium, he can't stop the tears.

"She liked them. She said you did, too." Nico's voice wavers and he clears his throat before he continues, haltingly, "so, I thought …"

Zita smiles. Her humming turns into words, unfamiliar, alluring, shaping the song. Nico's voice blends perfectly with it.

_"Baltassar rex fecit grande convivium optimatibus suis mille et unusquisque secundum suam bibebat aetatem –"_

Riario is drifting amidst vibrant colours, scents and sounds. Nico's voice reading from the Book of Daniel provides guidance toward a sleep he knows his body requires. He shies away from it like a devil would from holy water, though. In sleep, ghosts wait.

The pull of the opium and fatigue is stronger though, eventually, and the familiar story of Belshazzar and the writing on the wall weaves itself into his uneasy dreams.

***

_He is six years old again, back at the convent, the lone churchbell calling the nuns to_ Laudes _. He is back at Sister Ignatia's hand, familiar and calloused from work in the monastery's gardens and kitchens._

_"What is faith, Sister?" he asks, looking up at her._

_Sister Ignatia smiles, pleased, and ruffles his hair. Her habit's wide sleeve brushes his face and he breathes in the scent of body-warm wool and sunlit rosemary that he connects only with her. "It is being certain that, even though we may not see it, the Lord is working. Is holding us in his palm. Is protecting us and caring for us. No matter where life may take us, no matter how lost we may be, the Lord is always there." She appears alight from within with her conviction. Faith must be something friendly and warm if it makes her seem so happy. "He never forgets us. He never leaves us alone."_

_"How can you be so certain?" he asks because he cannot grasp it. "People forget. My mother forgot me. My father did, too. How can the Lord not forget a single one of us? There are so many people. Not all of them are good." He remembers taking an apple from Sister Chiara's orchard and how she threatened that the Lord would not smile kindly on those who took without asking._

_"Girolamo," Sister Ignatia's voice sounds strange, as if she is sad. She makes him sit down next to her and rests her hand on his shoulder. "No matter what other people say or do, the Lord will never leave you." He knows she will not be there for him much longer. He turns seven years old in a few weeks and will be an oblate then, brought to a monastery and tutored solely by the monks. He looks up at her careworn, kind face, her dark brown eyes shadowed by the veil of her habit. "He believes in you," she continues, "the way I believe in you. He forgives your sins even if you do not confess them. As long as you remember that, nothing anyone says or does can hurt you." She looks sincere._

_He doubts that she is right. A beating will always hurt, whether God is there or not, but he says, "Yes, sister," so he won't make her sad._

_She smiles, proud, and he knows he made the right decision. "You know how children are given a verse from the bible at their baptism to guide their life?"_

_Girolamo nods._

_"Your mother was not there to give you one, so when the Holy Father left you in my care, I chose your verse. I believe it is time you were familiar with it. Keep it with you at all times, Girolamo. Remember it. Guard it in your heart."_

_His heart beats against his ribcage, thrilled to have something that belongs only to him for once, thrilled to hear again that it was the Holy Father himself who brought him here._

_Sister Ignatia leans down to take his hands in hers and incants softly: "Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared._ _Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries."_

_"An enemy to your enemies," Girolamo repeats, fascinated._

_"Remember the rest as well," Sister Ignatia says with a smile. "Remember."_

_The bell in the tower begins to ring and he reaches for Sister Ignatia's hand, longing for the warmth and strength and love the older nun had always provided him with. She reaches out as well, but her fingers turn translucent, distant, out of reach forever._

The sound of the ship's bell wakes him, shivering, sweating with renewed pain, staring into the dim oil-light of the dark, empty cabin. He blinks back tears.

In those last few weeks they had together, Sister Ignatia shaped his faith, gave him the certainty she had that there was a loving God. That certainty never left him – until he started working for Sixtus. Until he did the unforgivable and killed his mother. All men were sinners, but he was now chief among them.

_Peccatores, quorum primus ego sum._

He heaves himself up into a sitting position, pushes back the thin blanket and tears off the sweat-soaked shirt that clings to his skin. The effort leaves him panting. When the dizziness and the nausea have receded, his gaze stops at his leg: the constant reminder of his failure.

After his mother's death, he had been certain that all he did for Sixtus and the Church would someday redeem himself in God's eyes, make him worthy of God's love again – of his father's love as well. Sixtus encouraged that belief. If only he worked hard enough to smite God's enemies, the Lord would smile upon him again, kind and loving, the way Sister Ignatia taught him. He would finally have a place in life, with his father.

After Amelia's death, he had started to see Sixtus for who he really was. The Book of Leaves, appearing like a divine intervention, had seemed like the only viable option to find redemption. He had still hoped that redemption was waiting for him then.

Riario is no longer certain of that.

He misses his conviction worse than he misses Zita, and he hates himself for it. The security his faith gave him was what kept him going. Now, here, he's adrift, literally and metaphorically. Alone. God has fully turned his back on him. There is no one.

A light draught goes through the cracks in the wooden cabin's walls. He shivers as the sweat cools and dries on his skin. It's dark outside, and the oil lamp swaying near the bed only provides meagre light that makes the walls seem to close in on him the longer he looks at them.

***

Even in his fever dreams, Riario notices that DaVinci checks on him. Every day. He more than checks on him, he sleeps on the floor in front of Riario's bed, and Riario only finds out when Nico tells him that this is not a new obsession with medicine.

"Captain Sindona offered him the officer's cabin when we came aboard the _Sentinel_ ," Nico explains. It makes sense. Though DaVinci is not nobility, his reputation precedes him – likely aided by the story-telling talent of Amerigo Vespucci. "And when you …" Nico is kind enough not to say what he must really think, "fell ill, the maestro ordered to have you brought into his cabin."

"Why?" Riario asks.

Nico shrugs, "So he can properly take care of your infected wound and the fracture."

"He could have done that anywhere on the ship."

"Not without running the risk of Zo strangling you while I wasn't looking," DaVinci says, opening the door fully, carrying a plate full of fruit. "Thank you, Nico, I will take over now."

"Why do you do this?" Riario asks. The fever still burns in him and he isn't quite clear which day it is. It's the same question he's asked Nico, and maybe he shouldn't ask it, but he must find out. There must be a reason, a strategy. Something that drives DaVinci.

"Your face is too pretty to have Zo mar it," DaVinci shrugs. "It's a long journey back home. I'll need something to draw."

"Why," Riario repeats, ignoring the facetious answer, "Do you care whether I live or die?"

"You're a fighter. You travelled across an ocean to get to the Book of Leaves, just like I did. Little minds would have given up, would have shied away from the task. But you, just like I, would have pursued the Book unto death."

If only, Riario can't help but think. It would have spared him finding out that the Book wasn't at the end of this costly journey. That God was laughing at him.

DaVinci sets the plate down, takes a piece of the ripe, sweet-smelling fruit and guides it into his mouth. Juice runs down his fingers. He licks it off, oblivious to the near-obscene picture he makes.

"You said that you would kill me if we were to leave the Vault without the Book. Why didn't you?"

"I was rather preoccupied by facing certain death and jumping off a mountain." He is deflecting on purpose.

Of course, DaVinci looks through his strategy. "Would you have killed me if we hadn't jumped?"

Riario finds that for all his conviction when he uttered those words, so fresh after Zita's death, he cannot say. His hatred had been bright and all-consuming, it kept him going, but as he stared at the empty Vault of Heaven, shocked to the core that all he had hoped for and worked toward was not there, maybe did not even exist, it dissipated like a breath of air on a winter's morning. There was no more room for hate. Not there. Not then. Not for DaVinci.

To his surprise, DaVinci doesn't press for an answer. "Eat," he says and pushes some of the fruit at Riario.

"Why?"

"I stole the last one from the hold to share it with you. So eat."

"Why?" Riario asks again once he has chewed and swallowed the near-moan at the perfect juicy sweet-tartness of the fruit. "Why do you care?"

DaVinci rolls his eyes. "Maybe I just like you." He sets the plate down on Riario's blanket just over his thighs.

Riario snorts a laugh and sinks back against the pillow, wondering if he is hallucinating again. He said nearly the same words to Nico, though it feels like a lifetime ago. And it was. He was a different person back then. Though he was sincere. "You _like_ me."

"Is that so unlikely?"

He doubts that DaVinci is being serious. It seems that he rarely is when he is not talking about science. No one does anything without a reason. And no one _likes_ him. Fears, hates, admires, maybe. But not _likes_. "Rather, yes."

DaVinci shrugs and doesn't look amused for once. "Better get used to it. We have another nine weeks ahead of us."

Riario can't help but remember the storm that took the _Basilisk_. " _If_ we make it."

This time, DaVinci smiles, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "We're fixed to a star, Girolamo," DaVinci says into the quiet. "It will never stop guiding us."


	6. Three Weeks In

**Three weeks in**

DaVinci seems to have made it his personal mission to mend Riario's bone faster than nature intended.

Riario hits his breaking point regarding experimental medicine and the enthusiastic explanation thereof sometime around the third week. "Stop moving your damn hands in my face."

The cabin is cramped and uncomfortable, his mind feels the toll of being forced to stay mostly still with only few things to keep him occupied. More out of habit, he's tried to pray, but it is not working. God is no longer listening. That in conjuncture with DaVinci's long-fingered hands dancing around as he explains yet another improvement to the damn leg-brace feel as though fate is trying to mock Riario for being stagnant. It's driving him mad.

DaVinci stops and inclines his head. "What's wrong with you today?"

"What –" Oh, Christ, the man is serious. Riario laughs, with no amusement at all. "What's wrong with me _today_?" He throws back the blanket that's lying over his lap. "The same thing that was wrong with me the day before and the day before that and the three godforsaken weeks before that." He grapples for a beam and pulls himself into a standing position. "My leg is broken. I cannot move more than a few yards on my own, I can hardly take a piss without someone helping me, you do not leave me alone even for the most private moments and I cannot _think."_

"The most private –" DaVinci trails off and raises his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

Riario closes his eyes and drops his head against the beam with a self-deprecating laugh. "Of course you would deliberately misunderstand _that_ part of the tirade." He was thinking of personal hygiene, but DaVinci clearly mistook his words. He wants to laugh – he hasn't even thought of touching himself, not when the brace and the leg provide this much discomfort.

A cough, covering another sound Riario can't place. He refuses to open his eyes now, because he is fairly sure he gave away more than he wanted to. "Are you telling me," DaVinci says, voice wavering just a little, "you think that I thought that you wanted to tend to your prick in private?" DaVinci tries to sound incredulous, but the effect is ruined by the end of the sentence ending in an odd snorfling sound.

Riario's anger trickles away as the ridiculousness of the conversation sinks in.

"Count Riario, who would have known." DaVinci laughs, a low and delighted laugh that's closer than his voice was before. He must be standing next to the beam now. His laughter is oddly contagious, even though he's laughing at Riario. DaVinci's hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. "There's a human being underneath that perfect posture after all."

DaVinci's nose is scrunched up in warm amusement when Riario opens his eyes again and he can't help but twitch a smile in return. "It appears that you are rubbing off on me," Riario says with a one-shouldered shrug. That way, he only moves DaVinci's hand but doesn't shake it off. He surprises himself by how much he craves the human contact. Here, on this ship, there is no one who touches him outside of invalid care. Back in Rome, there were at least servants in the Vatican bathhouse who performed regular massages after his baths. On the _Basilisk_ , even in the Incan cell, there was Zita. He is loath to admit that the lack of touch bothers him deeply.

DaVinci gapes again, splutters, then laughs, loud, a near convulsive belly-laughter that has tears of mirth rolling down his cheek, a glistening trail through a stubbly beard he hasn't shaven in days. "I’m doing what?" The entire display is so infectious that Riario's morose thoughts drift away like a fine morning mist over the sea.

"Poor choice of words," Riario agrees. He can't get rid of the last remnants of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He does not know when it has become easy to laugh with DaVinci, but it has. It is such a relief from the darkness that shrouds him most days that he finds himself holding on to it, wanting it to last.

There's a speculative glint in DaVinci's eyes, something Riario has seen a few times now, usually just before DaVinci comes up with another bizarre but brilliant idea. It is as comforting as it is unnerving to have that look directed at himself.

"Maybe just the right choice of words."

Riario narrows his eyes. "What –"

"Shh." DaVinci's hand comes up, three fingers press against Riario's lips to stop his question, while the thumb rests against his chin. "I want to test a theory."

Riario forces himself to relax into the surprisingly intimate touch but feels his fingers dig into the rough wood of the beam nevertheless. He's good at enduring momentary uncertainty by way of deflection, so he slowly raises his eyebrow at DaVinci and looks him straight in the eyes. A question. A taunt. What now, _Artista_? What is your theory?

The silence of the cabin is only interspersed by the now-familiar creaking of wood and the sloshing sound of the waves against the hull. DaVinci's lashes flutter for the briefest moment, then he, too, holds Riario's gaze, pupils dilating and shrinking against the light brown iris as he focuses.

Steps clatter down the short staircase and the door flies open. DaVinci doesn't move, keeps his hand where it is, the lightest bit of perspiration now on his fingertips, cool against Riario's lips. He doesn't look away.

There's silence for the blink of an eye, then Zoroaster says "Fucking hell, Leo, tell me you're trying to suffocate and not seduce him."

Riario raises his eyebrow higher and twitches a smile against DaVinci's fingertips, settling into the so very familiar mockery that has served as his defence mechanism for many years, even if – or because – the Dog's question unsettles him.

DaVinci's hand remains, but begins to twitch with the need to move. He's still keeping eye-contact, but a shift in his eyes bespeaks that he's no longer fully there. When he's thinking, DaVinci cannot keep his hands still. The fingertips against Riario's lips become butterfly movements, the softest touch against vulnerable skin, making his breath stutter against his will.

"Leo!"

DaVinci breaks eye-contact to roll his eyes and look over his shoulder at Zoroaster. "Get out, Zo, I'm experimenting!"

The Dog has his arms crossed over his chest. "What kind of experiment is that, exactly?"

An excellent question. Riario grudgingly admits that the Dog has a lot of those to ask.

DaVinci's hand disappears from Riario's face. He turns, stalks over to Zoroaster and tries to bodily remove him from the room. Zoroaster blocks the attempt easily. "Amerigo wants you at the helm. Captain's got a question."

DaVinci's struggle is only for show. There's a new challenge ahead, so of course he pursues it. He races up the short flight of stairs leading to the deck, the staircase that still defies Riario without help.

Riario sits back on the bed hard, one hand pressed against his mouth to still the trembling.

What now, _Count_?

Something hurdles through the cabin and Riario ducks just in time to avoid the knife that is now quivering in the wall where his head used to be. "If you so much as lay a hand on him, the next one won't miss."

"If _I_ lay a hand on _him_." This time, his laughter is not forced. "I had not realised you were this amusing."

"He's _my_ best friend. Keep away."

"Proprietary," Riario sums up. He smiles, bright and condescending. "Much as I would love to follow your every wish, it proves to be a little hard to do, seeing as I can hardly leave this cabin and he keeps coming to me." He purses his lips, mimes first thinking and then a revelation. "It seems that you should be delivering your speech to him, not me."

Zoroaster spits on the deck.

Riario pulls the knife from the wall and weighs it. "Thank you for this. It might be useful in the future." Oh, but it is a delight to see the Dog's face fall when he realises he just handed Riario a weapon. "You have excellent throwing technique. Do you ever teach Nico?"

At that, Zoroaster bristles even more. "You stay away from him as well. Nico does not need to know about knife-throwing. He's meant for greater things."

It is almost charming how protective The Dog is. Charming and insulting. "Why do you not let him decide what he wants to be?"

"Yes, Zo," Nico's voice sounds from behind The Dog. "Why won't you stop mother-henning me?"

"Nico," Riario says, weighing the knife on his index and middle finger. It's a good, solid knife. It will make for good practice material. "Did you know that knives have a tendency to tumble when thrown? You need special skills to throw them properly and hit your mark."

Nico pushes past Zoroaster, his chin raised in defiance as he looks at him. "Why don't you teach me, Count?"

***

A week passes. DaVinci works on the brazen head and is barely seen during the day.

Riario spends his days with Nico, arguing about the teachings of Aristotle, legal theory and the nature of power.

"Why did you not continue your training as a legal scholar?"

Nico shrugs and busies himself with cleaning the sand clock. "It was nothing but learning theories by heart without thinking them through. I was told to use old knowledge but I only regurgitated it. There was no meaning. I was applying a hammer to every problem they presented me."

"When sometimes, you needed a different tool?"

Nico smiles, surprised. "I also hated the air of superiority and sucking up to nobility. The law I was taught was not for all the people. It was just for those who had money."

"Of which you were one."

Nico snorts a bitter laugh. "Your spies seem to have missed a bit of information there."

Riario waits. If Nico wants to divulge his past, he will.

"My father was a lawyer of particular … " he trails off and the smile he now wears is cynical, "what you would likely call _inefficacy_. He was bad at his job and we were broke for as long as I can remember."

"But he did pay for your tutelage."

Another cynical laugh. "He probably hoped that I would take over his job and save the family. What he didn't realise was that I didn't want to do what he did, learn what he learned. I didn't want to learn how to act in an ideal world, as presented in utopian books."

"Which is what caused him to fail at being an advocate?"

"He had no sense for practical problems. He couldn't handle his clients, couldn't talk to them."

"So what did you learn with DaVinci that you did not learn in your father's house?"

"To think freely. To judge a situation quickly and adapt to it."

Riario nods. "Situations can change quickly. What you think was your fate might change within a matter of hours. It helps to listen to those changes like listening to the wind. Listen to the people, but not just their words."

"Is that how you managed to thrive at Sixtus' court?"

Riario smiles. Court. Everyone except for DaVinci's friends would have used a reverend name. Nico is all too correct, however. His father is not being the leader of Christendom as much as he is a nepotist autocrat.

"You need the proper action for every situation. Prepare. Adapt. Watch. And never give anyone the satisfaction of seeing you weak."

"It can work to your advantage," Nico disagrees. His look turns shrewd. "If they underestimate you, you have the element of surprise on your side."

Something like pride warms Riario. "Quite so."

"I keep thinking about what you said on the _Basilisk_ ," Nico says. He chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "That it's better to be feared than loved."

"It is easier," Riario says, nodding.

"It's rubbish." Nico raises his chin. "Would you rather have had Zita fear you than love you?"

It's a precise cut Nico deals, so clean Riario barely notices the pain before the blood wells. "Fear would have kept her alive."

"You don't know that."

"I do not." He looks at his hands, flexes them. "But she would not have died at my hands."

"Why can't you be both?" Nico asks after several moments of uncomfortable silence have passed, guiding the subject in a slightly different direction. "To be loved and feared. More loved than feared, preferably?"

It takes Riario a moment to answer, to swallow against the raw hurt that wants to close his throat. "You cannot control love. It is arbitrary. Flighty."

"So fear is predictable? The safe option?"

"It is a steadying influence. Someone who fears you will not betray you _because_ he fears you."

Something flies over the forecastle's railing and nearly hits Riario in the head. He catches the cut off piece of rope with his left hand instead. "It's no wonder you're such a miserable fuck if that's what you believe." Zoroaster looks down at him and scoffs.

Riario ties a complicated knot in the rope and throws it toward Nico. He's learned by now that it's better to ignore the mongrel than to engage. "Do not expect people to love you, Nico. Accept it if they do, but take precautions. A lover who is no longer a lover can be a dangerous opponent. The same goes for friends."

"Fear doesn't wear off. It's stable." Nico nods as though he understands. It is too simple, of course, broken down into a small and palatable piece for Nico's still young mind to swallow. Riario knows that constant fear will not help keep you in power any more than love will. Both are inherently unstable. Both wear off eventually. If you add hope to the mixture, it becomes an unstoppable power. Nico will learn in time. Maybe Riario will be around to see it.

They keep talking well into the night.

For his young age, Nico is surprisingly cynical, something which resonates with Riario. Nico calls Aristotle an impractical dreamer. "Why do you think Ancient Rome was so successful?" He chews on a piece of dried fruit and spits out the pit over the gunwale. "Not because they sat around thinking of how to be happy and virtuous. They were full of beans. They wanted to be big. And as a result, they were."

Nico is a quick learner with a flexible mind and he questions everything, even, it turns out, his Maestro. Someday he will be formidable.

Over the next days, Riario keeps teaching Nico what he knows best, from manipulation to courtly behaviour, self-protection and how to best cause pain – verbal and physical – with minimal damage. Now that he is not fighting Riario anymore, Nico watches and learns with a feverish eagerness, quicker than anyone Riario has ever met.

After just one week, he wonders if he is creating a monster.

He feels pride rather than remorse.


	7. Three and a half weeks in

**Three and a half weeks in**

Riario wakes to the sound of a sword moving slowly, the zing of it through the air familiar as breathing.

He doesn't bother to open his eyes, though he does wonder why it has taken Zoroaster this long. The defensive smirk spreads all by itself. It's ingrained in him by now: Smile, don't show weakness. Laugh if you need to. Confuse your enemy (your father) and it will keep you alive those few moments longer that might make the difference. He reaches for the dagger under his pillow.

"If you have come to kill me, I suggest you do it quickly." A breath, another, then he's on his feet with the dagger against his opponent's throat. He ignores the pain that lances through him as he puts weight on his leg.

"And good afternoon to you too." DaVinci blocks the dagger easily. "I was just waiting for you to finally wake up, but if you take it as an attempt on your life, I think we have a lot to talk about." DaVinci inclines his head. "The leg must be mending if you're up this quickly. How's the pain?"

"Acceptable," Riario lies through his teeth. He forces a smile on his face. "Forgive me if I react a little harshly to waking up to the sound of a sword near my head."

"It's a small cabin."

Which still doesn't explain why DaVinci even has the courtesy to not wake Riario outright. Or why he passes his time playing with a sword. "Why are you here?" It has been a week. Riario had begun to think DaVinci had found a new place to sleep.

"I thought if I caught you just after sleep, your smirky façade might not be up yet." DaVinci shrugs. He doesn't look disappointed, merely curious. "Guess I’ll have to find another way."

"Why would you? More importantly, why do you assume it's a façade?"

DaVinci's mouth pulls down as if to say that Riario just insulted his intelligence. "You're curious. And something of a riddle. You know I have a hard time passing those by."

Riario feels the smile slip a little before he plasters it back on. "I'm glad I provide amusement for the great _Artista_ of Florence."

A sound of distaste and impatience. "Why don't you drop the act for once, Girolamo."

Riario swallows, feels his jaw clench. It's rare that people call him by his first name. DaVinci has only done so once and Riario was in a similarly vulnerable position back then. He breathes against the anger rising inside of him and puts the smile back on. Armour. "What act is that, _Leonardo_?"

The corner of DaVinci's mouth kicks up for a moment, recognising the counter-attack, then he appears serious again. "The one where nothing bothers you. Where you're invincible."

Riario snorts and gives a pointed look toward his leg. "I think the past weeks have proven that I am anything but."

"Where nothing scares you."

"And how readily do you show to your enemies that something scares you?" He'd learned early on in his life that showing his fear meant being eaten alive. First, by the older children at the monastery, and later on, by his father.

Something flickers over DaVinci's face. "Are we enemies? Still?"

"We are not friends, either." It is sad, somehow. In the many sleepless hours since the _Sentinel_ set sail back to Italy, Riario has entertained frivolous thoughts – about what it would be like to have people he trusted and who were not servants or slaves. People who were not bought and then tutored, but people who were there for his sake. Frivolous, pointless thoughts.

"Then what are we?"

"I ask myself the same question." He's not ready for the kind of emotional honesty the answer to that question would require. "That, and whether this is yet another one of your experiments."

"Would you like it to be?" DaVinci's eyes flicker. "I can grant that wish." DaVinci takes a step back and raises the sword again. It slices through the air with a zing. The blade moves from Riario's neck to his chest and back up again, resting against his cheek with the cool, flat side. He forces himself to breathe slow and not give the slightest indication that what DaVinci is doing is both alarming and arousing him.

"Experimental theory one: You expect it, don't you? Pain?"

The blade slips to the corner of his mouth, metal whispering against facial hair. Riario clenches his teeth, wills himself not to blink.

"Theory two: You're used to it."

He can't stop the shiver as the cool metal ghosts across his lips, flat side down.

"The question is, do you fear it or welcome it?" DaVinci narrows his eyes. The blade thrums with the staccato movement of DaVinci's fingers against the handle as he thinks.

Instead of stepping back to avoid the sword, Riario opens his mouth and takes the blade between his teeth with a snarl. His heart hammers against his chest with anger and something else he can't – won't – place. It doesn't matter. He's had enough. He's not an object to study.

DaVinci blinks, a smile flickers on and off. Riario's teeth against the sword produce a toe-curling sound when DaVinci pulls it back. It clatters to the planks and DaVinci takes a few steps back, reaching for a goblet of water standing on the table. He empties it, then murmurs over his shoulder, "For the record, I never would have harmed you."

Riario closes his eyes briefly. Exhales. "You are bored," he states.

"Out of my fucking mind," DaVinci agrees and runs both hands through his hair. "Can you blame me?"

Riario straightens. "It is not a matter of blame. But let me be very clear here: I will not be your toy, to be used for your amusement, or your theories or to stave off your boredom."

DaVinci's lips tighten for a blink of an eye. "Then what will you be, Girolamo Riario?" He steps close. "What will you be?" DaVinci looks serious. Like he is actually interested in the answer instead of just mocking Riario.

This time, there's no Zoroaster to save him from the situation. Riario can't move on his own to leave the cabin, so he tries the next best thing, "This conversation is over," he says, in the tone he would use to dismiss a servant. "Please exit my quarters now."

DaVinci's face darkens, petulance shining through. "Our quarters, you mean. You're not the Lord and Captain on this ship. You – " He stabs a finger in Riario's direction, "Are only in here and not down in the cargo hold or on deck with the other men because I'm willing to share with your miserable arse."

And what a constant thorn in his side that is. DaVinci even let him have the bed nook while the other man sleeps on the floor. It matters not, though. Not now. He wants DaVinci gone, at least for long enough to bring some semblance of order to his thoughts.

"You sound like a petty child who was refused a toy." Riario straightens, lifts his chin. Biting back on the fury bubbling up inside of him is a gargantuan effort. "Get this into your head, DaVinci, because I will not repeat myself: I am not your plaything."

DaVinci remains silent; he just looks at Riario, eyes narrowed. "You're avoiding the question." A smile spreads over his features. It doesn't reach his eyes and disappears as quickly as it has come, replaced by something like sadness. Or worse, pity. "You're avoiding the question because you don't know. You don't know who you are."

Riario does not need more questions that get under his armour. He is unsettled enough as is. "Get. Out."


	8. Four weeks in

****

**Four weeks in**

A shaft of warm candle-light disrupts the darkness on deck when DaVinci slams the door of the ward room open with a shout of frustration. Up at the forecastle, Captain Sindona mutters something not too kindly in reply.

DaVinci is still working on that infernal contraption, the brazen head. Riario's heard his curses all the way to where he's sitting, legs stretched out, with his back pressed against the gunwale near the forecastle deck. He'd like to have a clearer view of the sea ahead of them, but the stairs still elude him, which is why he tends to only come out of the cabin at night. It's easier to accept the costs of his limitation when he's not tempted. The cold, salty breeze is a welcome change to the stuffiness of the tiny cabin at least.

DaVinci paces the deck several times, muttering under his breath. He only notices Riario when he almost falls over him. He stops, waits, then flops down next to Riario – a little too carelessly, judging from the bitten back curse. DaVinci shifts against the discomfort and his shoulder touches Riario's. It remains there, a warm point of contact; a friendly touch. Riario twitches back from the unfamiliar contact and DaVinci straightens a little. "Sorry."

Riario moves his hand in a noncommittal gesture because he's not quite sure what he wants to say. That it is all right? He's not sure it is. The touch was familiar, friendly. He's watched Zoroaster and Nico with DaVinci. The level of tactility between them speaks of years of history, of friendship. He, on in the other hand, never had a friend. Uneasy allies, enemies, slaves, servants, a lover, yes. No friends.

Their encounter two days ago left Riario … not shaken, but thoughtful. Milling thoughts over in his head, reliving moments of his past: trying, searching, picking, probing, mourning, raging. He’s still uncertain.

All that came of it was a brutal, persistent headache and even more doubt and shame.

He lets his head sink back against the gunwale and looks up and the uncountable number of stars above them, unfamiliar here and so much brighter than at home. The Incans, he had gathered in the long weeks of their stay, and later the few talks he overheard between DaVinci and Ima, don't look for the star signs in the bright spots of the night sky. They look at the darkness between the stars. Something about that belief appeals to Riario, no matter how comforting the light is.

Even without the dim lantern on the forecastle, he can make out DaVinci next to him from the corner of his eyes; DaVinci is all restless energy and impossible to ignore. The light of the stars reflects on his hair. Riario closes his eyes when the position of his eyes causes a fresh stab of pain to pierce through his skull. He doesn't stop the sharp intake of breath quickly enough.

"Are you all right?" That concerned tone again.

Riario huffs a cynical laugh. "That depends entirely on your definition of all right."

"Let me rephrase that, then." Good, DaVinci sounds halfway to annoyed. Maybe he will leave soon if Riario riles him enough. "Are you in pain and if so, where?"

Riario opens his eyes. "What is it to you?"

"What is it …" DaVinci begins, then trails off and makes a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and an annoyed huff. "Are you always this obstinate?"

Riario just raises one eyebrow in reply.

"Is it so unlikely for you to think that someone might care whether you're in agony or not?" There's honest curiosity in the question.

"No one does." After Sister Ignatia, so many years ago, no one apart from Zita ever did. He knows that most people around him would rather see him dead. And Zita … Pain, far worse than the physical, surfaces with a vengeance, and Riario breathes against it, against the tears that burn in his eyes, unbidden.

"Wrong," DaVinci says. "I do. So does Nico. And believe me, we get enough abuse for that from Zo, so you'd better not doubt our sincerity."

Something wild claws at Riario’s heart, something like hope. He needs to squash that before it rips him open. He needs to be alone. Needs DaVinci gone. Wants none of this new, unsettling kindness and understanding. After all, he abandoned everything he was taught. He killed Zita. "You're fools."

DaVinci shrugs. "Well, as the Bible says, _'Beati pauperes spiritu'_."

Riario straightens, shifts away from DaVinci. "Do not quote the _Bible_ at me of all things."

"What happened to you?" DaVinci asks, his voice low and surprised. "What happened to your faith?"

"It died on that mountain." Saying it out loud makes him expect some kind of punishment from heaven. A lightning strike, maybe, the way he was taught in the monastery. It doesn't come. Of course it doesn't. God does not care. "Maybe you were right to doubt."

He is not sure any longer if his faith really died, or if it is just twisted inside of him, tainted somehow by his search for the book, buried under the rubble of pain and confusion and the lack of knowing what to do, where to turn. The lack of a fixed point in his life. What was it Zita had said? _"The further we travel from our gods, the harder it becomes to pay tribute to them."_ He hasn't prayed in weeks and he misses it, the easiness, the way it cleared his mind. He doesn't dare utter the words, however. Fearing they won't be heard just as much as fearing that they will be. He has followed false idols. Why would even a loving God show him mercy? And this God has laughed at him. Made it clear that Riario is no longer worthy of his love. His faith had been strong and all encompassing, shaped by Sister Ignatia when the other nuns showed him nothing but indifference. It no longer is. Yet he longs for it. For the simplicity of the conviction he used to have.

The silence between them stretches. It's interspersed by one of the men below deck snoring loudly and another snarling at him to be quiet. The anchor knocks against the starboard hull and the sail thunders in the freshening wind.

"Tell me why hearing you say that doesn't feel like a victory," DaVinci says eventually.

Riario dips his head back to look at the stars again. It's easier than to look at DaVinci. "Do not ask me about victories. I have no knowledge of them." It seems a century ago that he last felt victorious. And what victories they were. Killing in the name of the Church. No, not really of the Church. Of father, the false Pope. Disgust wells up strong enough that he wants to spit out the bad taste in his mouth. He may have followed the Book of Leaves as a false idol, but the one he was following before was no better.

Minutes pass. Maybe hours. He loses track of time in the monotonous lull of the ship plowing through the ocean. Hears Zita's voice on the wind. The darkness between the stars whirls.

"You talk in your sleep." DaVinci says, out of the blue.

Riario's shoulders tense, which only makes the headache worse. "What of it?" His response is habitual, even if the notion of giving away anything while he is not aware unsettles him more than he wants to let on.

"You called her name."

Zita.

Riario stops breathing. The headache amplifies and threatens to split his skull.

"Tell me about her." DaVinci's hand hovers between them in the semi-darkness, then comes to rest on Riario's forearm: a light squeeze of comfort.

Riario draws a painfully large breath of salty sea-air into his lungs. Another. "She was —" Past tense. Always past tense now. How can the reason for her death be sitting next to him, offering comfort when there is no possible absolution for what he did, and no forgiveness to be given to DaVinci for what saving him meant?

It pours out of him then. How Zita came to him, how she fascinated him from the beginning. How he taught her his language as well as his faith. How she learned his favourite foods and cooked them for him especially, her _panpepato_ better than even Sixtus' best bakers could ever make it. How she was smart and loyal and discreet, worming her way into his heart in a quiet persistence which made it easy for him to free her from servitude. How fiercely protective she was of him. How he never understood why she would love him of all people, but was so comforted to have her fierce adoration, her unwavering faith in him. How, for the first time since his childhood, he believed he could be more than just the sword of the Church, an instrument of destruction, someone who was hated. How he could be someone who was cared for – loved, and meant for greater things.

"I wish I had refused her wish to accompany me."

"She would have been with Sixtus. For her, I think that would have meant a fate worse than the one she suffered with Ima's people."

Riario wants to lash out but finds that he doesn't have the strength for it. Not when DaVinci is right.

"She said to tell you that she forgives you."

"You said that before," he says, a harsh whisper. "Why?" Riario grabs for DaVinci's arm, claws his hand into sinews and muscles. DaVinci bites back a sound of pain but doesn't pull away. "Why would you say that?"

DaVinci carefully opens Riario's fingers to pull his arm to his midriff. Riario lets him. "Because I saw her."

"She is _dead_ , DaVinci," Riario says, and, Christ, even though he buried her, kneeled at her grave and prayed for her soul, even saw her ghost in a fever dream, saying it out loud feels so _wrong_. "She died in my arms." In his arms and by his hands. "I killed her –"

"So I could live." DaVinci doesn't blink against the tears pooling in his eyes. His voice, when he continues, is barely audible over the sound of the waves. "That is a debt I can never repay."

Riario shakes his head as he replays that horrible moment in the pale dawn light for the hundredth time. "She … guided the knife. It was her sacrifice. Not mine." Did he have to say it out loud to understand it?

"I did not want any of this."

He should hate DaVinci. He's tried . But once it became clear that there was no Book of Leaves in the vault and that everything he'd worked toward had been in vain, the hate he attempted to conjure evaporated. At first, he couldn't tell why, but the longer he has time to think about it, the clearer it becomes: He could have stopped Zita. He made the choice to accept her sacrifice for him. He was stronger than she was, physically speaking. To let her guide the knife into her body …It had been his decision, and his alone.

He can't blame DaVinci. He never asked Riario to save him. It was his own obsession with the Book of Leaves, with finding salvation.

Zita never stood a chance against Riario’s hunger for absolution.

She knew. Riario's hand shakes, a tremble that goes up his arm and continues in his entire body. _This_ is why she forgave him. Not for killing her. For offering her up on the altar of his own wish for forgiveness.

Unable to look at DaVinci any longer, Riario closes his eyes and tries to get the next breath in his lungs, but fails. The pain in his head amplifies, every heartbeat like a slim diamond hammer against the inside of his skull. It's fitting. It should feel _worse_.

"Hey," DaVinci's voice, low. "If you are in pain, I can help." And, gentler, "I can fix this."

Fix this. Fix what? Fix this how? More Tincture of Opium? At least that would stop Riario thinking.

"Will you let me help?"

DaVinci raises his hands to Riario's face so Riario can see them. It's the kind of considerateness DaVinci has shown a lot in the past weeks. His fingers twitch restlessly again, little whirls of air near Riario's face. DaVinci's eyes, a mere arm's length away, are huge and dark with the night. Riario gives the tiniest of nods, acquiescing to whatever it is DaVinci plans to do and DaVinci brings his hands closer, warmth radiating from the palms. He presses middle and index fingers against the bones underneath the end of Riario's eyebrow, hard, in infinitesimal circling motions.

At first, Riario wants to lash out because the pain seems to augment, but after a few steadying breaths, the pain dulls and Riario sags in relief.

DaVinci's smile is slow, but bright as the stars above them. "Told you." His voice, low and gently amused, crawls underneath Riario's skin.

The touch, though goal-oriented and not meant in any intimate manner, brings such a tidal wave of longing for human touch, any touch that isn't cruel, that Riario sways. He wants it. Wants more of it, but knows at the same time that he can never ask for it.

When, unable to take it any longer lest he do something drastic, Riario tries to move away with a muttered thank you, DaVinci clamps his hands against the sides of his face to hold Riario in place. The move covers Riario's ears as well, dulls the sounds from around him and leaves him with the thud-thud of his heart beating in his ears.

Riario snaps his gaze up to meet DaVinci's, stunned; suddenly he's a wild animal before a predator. DaVinci's pupils are large against his iris.

"Not yet," DaVinci says, and Riario has to read his lips to understand. It's a warning. An appeal. "It will not last if I only attend to these pressure points."

"Why," Riario murmurs, his own voice loud and unfamiliar in his head, "are you doing this?"

"I can fix this," DaVinci says again. It's like a chant. He moves his fingers so they now press against the insides of Riario's eyebrows, over his nose. DaVinci's hands smell of copper and one of the exotic fruits Vespucci brought on board.

Riario exhales when more of the pain ebbs away. His breath is reflected by DaVinci's palms, warm, moist. DaVinci's right hand trembles, then calms. It's too much. Riario moves his own hands up to close them around DaVinci's deceptively fragile wrists. He knows a hundred ways to cause DaVinci pain and resents thinking of even one.

"Thank you," Riario says. DaVinci's pulse thrums against this thumbs. "I am quite fine now."


	9. Four and a half weeks in

****

**Four and a half weeks in**

The Holy Father had an entire staff just for the papal baths and his personal cleanliness. One of the first things Riario learned when Sixtus called him into his services was that his father would refuse to even share a large room with anyone who had not bathed. The strict regime of daily ablutions, uncommon for most others, is one Riario has grown used to, appreciated, and had performed even in the Incan prison cell.

Even though few of the other men on the ship know what he needs it for, he has Nico bringing him a bucket full of water and a linen rag each morning and evening so he can wash up. Sea water isn't ideal and leaves an itchy film of salt on his skin, but it's better than foregoing being clean. Using fat from the meat they had brought on board in the new world and the ashes of seaweed, DaVinci, in yet another sleepless and bored night, had managed to make a simple, odourless soap that aided both the physical cleanliness as well as that of his clothes. He still requires a footstool to sit on while he washes up, but it is leagues better than having Nico help him. In the first week, the boy did it, no questions asked, but Riario never liked it. Nico is meant for greater things than tending on an invalid.

Riario is in the middle of washing off the soap-suds from his chest and arms when he hears the door to the cabin squeak open, bringing in a foreceful gust of cold wind and the scent of rain and electricity in the air. The lamp he's lit to brighten the gloom of the cabin sways with the vigour of the draught. He forces himself not to turn around and continues cleaning himself instead. There are only three people who dare enter the cabin when he's alone in it: Nico, Zoroaster and DaVinci. He can tell them all apart by the way their steps sound on the planks.

DaVinci, who hasn't been in the cabin to sleep the previous night, steps closer without announcing himself. He knows Riario is aware of him. He pauses, close enough Riario swears he can feel his body heat. DaVinci is a nervous presence in the cabin, making Riario's breath come quicker while he forces himself to remain passive. He has shown enough weakness in the previous weeks.

Outside the cabin, the first distant growl of thunder becomes audible and Captain Sindona shouts at the men to strike the sails and close the portholes. Their answering bustle is muted when someone slams shut the porthole that brought the last rays of red-golden evening light into the officer's cabin and latches it. The _Sentinel_ begins to rock in the strengthening wind.

Finding calm in the daily ritual, despite his footstool swaying with the ship's movement, Riario dips the rough linen in the bucket, takes it back out with a splashing sound that's suddenly loud in the cabin. He squeezes excess water from it so he won't get the entire cabin waterlogged. A soap-sud slides from his neck down his back and Riario shudders, both at the sensation and the knowledge of DaVinci watching it trail down his spine.

DaVinci moves, then. He takes the wet linen from Riario's hand and catches the sud with it, halting, staying in place for what feels like an eternity. Gooseflesh pebbles Riario's skin even as the cloth warms from his body heat. It's only when a clap of thunder sounds outside and Riario flinches that DaVinci continues to wipe down Riario's back with quick, efficient movements, like the skilled hand of a bathhouse servant.

He takes the soap from Riario and sets it down next to the bucket, lets the linen drop back into the water, but stops his hand again, hovering just over Riario's forearm.

The hair on Riario's arm rises, like a magnetic pull toward the heat of DaVinci's palm. He remains still even though his skin aches to close this minuscule but insurmountable distance. After everything that has happened, it would be so much easier if he could lie to himself and tell himself that he did not desire.

It is wrong to want. To want at all, worse to want _this_. Not just because the Bible forbids it, but because he wants more than just DaVinci’s body: his brilliance, his conviction, his independence, his easy way of caring. His carefree heretic ways that defy everyone and everything that wants to reign him in.

After the disaster with the Book, Riario should know better than to follow idols, be they false or not. But that is what DaVinci is, isn't he? An idol. A symbol. A symbol for everything Riario isn't, never had, but so desperately craves.

The brightness of lightning floods through the gaps between the hatch, blinding Riario for a few breaths. A booming rumble of thunder follows quickly. It is then that DaVinci closes the distance and sets his hand on Riario's arm – fingers curling slightly, the lightest pressure.

Riario feels the noise from outside fade away, his entire being drawn toward that one, warm point of contact between them.

"Tell me if I am misreading this," DaVinci murmurs; his voice close to Riario's ear, his hair brushing Riario's shoulder, claustrophobic and warm.

Riario drops his chin to his chest and tries to remember how to breathe. His fingernails bite into his thigh.

"Tell me," DaVinci repeats. His fingers flex, nails white against Riario's darker skin.

Riario gives up: he shakes his head.

The silence stretches, becomes unbearable. Close to him, the bucket slides over the floor when the _Sentinel_ dips into a wave valley, the scratch-slosh sound loud and distracting now that his ears are attuned to DaVinci's every sound. The next thing Riario feels is a long exhale and the butterfly-soft touch of lips against the back of his neck and he wants, Christ, he _wants_ –

He reaches out blindly, claws his hands into DaVinci's arm and fights the litany of supplications that is clamouring to break free of his throat by twisting around and searching for DaVinci's mouth. He doesn't – can't, won't allow himself to – close that final distance, though. Lightning brightens the brown of DaVinci's eyes to gold.

Shivering down to his core, Riario understands that he will burn like Daedalus, too close to the sun that is DaVinci. He wants, wants with every fibre of his being but he knows he must not; fears that it will destroy what precious little there is left of him. But by the God who no longer watches over him, he wants to pretend for a little while.

They're sharing fast and urgent breaths, staring at one another, faces so close their noses almost touch. Riario can smell the watered down wine on DaVinci's breath and their mingled arousal, heavy in the air, eroding his resolve. What if. What if he lets himself fall?

"Tell me if I am misreading this," DaVinci says again, low and strained. "Misreading you." His breath, interspersed by little hitches, fans Riario's cheek. DaVinci raises his hand and glides it up Riario's neck and into his hair, nails scraping ever so slightly against Riario's scalp and Riario can't stop the whimper that wrings itself free of him. DaVinci gasps, breathes the sound in. "I must hear it from you."

"You are not," Riario whispers.

He will leap with his eyes open instead of falling blind. He will not be a pawn in this: He closes the distance. Forces himself past passiveness, past fear and shame and guilt, and beyond all the teachings that tell him that what he is doing is wrong. He kisses DaVinci, viciously greedy, all tongue and teeth and no finesse whatsoever.

DaVinci responds to the kiss with equal fervour for a few glorious moments, then his hands bunch in Riario's hair, the pain exquisite as he pulls Riario back. He pants, his exhalations shivering down Riario's neck in accordance with the wind outside.

"Wait," a whisper against Riario's kiss-moistened lips. "Let me." He moves back to unlace his shirt and throw it across the cabin.

Riario's breath stutters, even the minor break in action threatening to allow him to think again. Before his mind can put a stop to his actions, DaVinci bends forward. Kisses him again, a touch of his tongue against half-open lips, a scrape of teeth against the vulnerable skin, careful, gentle, more erotic than anything Riario’s experienced before. Flayed open by the tender precision, Riario gasps and tries to get closer, to deepen the kiss and lick into DaVinci's mouth and bite at his lips. He’s desperate to make DaVinci lose the gentleness Riario cannot handle and incite him to move faster, to make him stop thinking.

He ignores the pain in his leg and grabs DaVinci's arse, cupping both hands around firm, muscular cheeks to pull DaVinci against him. DaVinci follows willingly, slides into Riario's lap as natural as breathing. Through their breeches, their erections rub together and DaVinci drops his head against Riario's shoulder: they both freeze.

DaVinci's hot, moist breath combined with his short nails against Riario's back sets Riario's skin on fire. He rolls his hips once and DaVinci's broken-off groan mingles with Riario's own before it is lost in the next thunder clap.

The only sounds in the aftermath are their harsh breaths, the increasing creaking of the ship as it rolls from wave-valley to wave top, the sound of the seamen shouting outside and Riario's own heartbeat, pulsing his ears. DaVinci moves in his lap, his head raised again, his lips mere inches away from Riario's, his tight gyrations, intensified by the ever more violent movements of the ship, creating an unholy friction.

With a growl, Riario pushes them forward, unwilling to stop and think. With his lips against DaVinci's neck, he tunnels his hand under DaVinci's breeches.

The guttural groan DaVinci gives when Riario runs a blunt fingernail over the silky-soft skin of his erection connects in Riario's stomach like a punch. He does it again, then closes his hand around DaVinci's erection just to hear that sound again. To breathe in the way DaVinci's scent changes. To taste the salt of fresh sweat.

DaVinci's fingers bite into his back while his other hand twists harder in Riario’s hair. The exquisiteness of the sensation makes Riario groan and roll his hips against DaVinci's.

"S-Slow do –" DaVinci gasps. "Down."

Riario pretends to not understand. He can't slow down, can't think about what he is doing here, what he is selfishly taking for himself. He needs to drown his mind in the raw primality of the sensation.

So he slams his eyes shut and finds DaVinci's mouth again. Finds his neck to suck a bruising kiss to the side of it, pumps his hand, the knuckles of his own hand providing stimulation for himself as well as DaVinci.

It is all too much: DaVinci's scent, the heat and salt of his skin, his hand in Riario's hair, his cock against Riario's own, even with the layers of cloth separating them. DaVinci's hum of pleasure low under his breath, vibrations going from his skin to Riario's lips where they come to rest against DaVinci's collarbone, panting and fighting the words that want to slip free of his vocal chords.

DaVinci's not quiet. The closer Riario pushes him to his climax, the louder he gets. The sounds wash over Riario, fill his entire being, drown out the sound of the wind and the men yelling outside, until there's nothing but their harsh breaths, DaVinci's pleasure and his own, as they rut against one another. Riario speeds up his hand to match the pace and, without warning, DaVinci tenses and comes on a long drawn-out moan, spilling warm and wet over Riario's hand.

Riario buries his forehead against DaVinci's collarbone and snaps his hips up, desperate to follow suit, but it's only when DaVinci's one hand closes around Riario's cock and the other curls even harder into his hair, when DaVinci pulls his head back and demands, "Look at me" that Riario falls over the edge and comes. His climax is mute save for his stuttering breath. For a few, blissful moments, his mind, too, is utterly quiet as he rides out the aftershocks that still skitter along his skin.

DaVinci's hands are on him when he comes back, trailing over his back. "Holy fuck," he hears DaVinci murmur. He sounds breathless and awed. "Holy fuck, you are gorgeous when you let go."

Holy.

Riario freezes. Self-loathing climbs up inside his chest, and launches itself against the fragile grip he has on his self-control.

Nothing about what they just did is holy. And yet he craved it, craves more of it even as his body is sated and pliant and the fact that – despite knowing that he just committed a sin against everything he was taught, against everything he believes in – he wants more. Wants to taste the sweat on DaVinci's chest, hear the sound he made when he came, wants to feel the softness of DaVinci's clever, clever mouth around his cock … it makes him push DaVinci, hard.

DaVinci slips off his lap and lands on his arse and back in the puddle the water bucket left, and, oh, God, sprawled as DaVinci is on the floor, Riario can think of little beyond how DaVinci would move underneath him, head thrown back in ecstasy. How, after, he would run his long-fingered hand through Riario's hair until he slipped into sleep: safe, guarded and free of doubt.

Confusion flickers over DaVinci's face. It is all too soon replaced by annoyance and something like betrayal. He picks himself off the floor, slipping a little as the ship rolls, laces his trousers and pulls his shirt back on, layer upon layer covering the skin Riario now knows is soft and warm.

DaVinci moves without his usual grace; brittle as over-burned clay and Riario both hates watching him prepare to leave and at the same time revels in finding a way underneath DaVinci's armour.

The remnants of DaVinci's warmth fade along with his own as Riario's heart slows down from the frantic beat of their encounter. Standing half-naked in the cabin with a thunderstorm raging outside, he begins to shiver. The warmth will leave with DaVinci. All the offer of distraction, the hope of something beyond the endless cycle of self-doubt and self-loathing will be gone with him. He will remain cold, frozen.

When he's almost past him, Riario reaches out and catches DaVinci's wrist.

"Make up your mind, will you?" The words are spoken harshly, DaVinci's fist is clenched, but he does not continue walking. Does not pull away.

Riario does not know what he wants to convey with the gesture. Make DaVinci stay, hurt, soothe, keep him at bay, it all wars inside of him. He moves his hand and covers DaVinci's clenched fist, hoping to make the other man understand what he can't say, what he doesn't even understand himself.

Digit by digit, he feels DaVinci's hand relax. Tentative, DaVinci's fist opens and just as delicately, Riario slots his fingers through DaVinci's. DaVinci sighs softly. Riario is captivated by how similar their hands are while his mind races through every reason why he should stop this. He should let DaVinci go, should reject him, _make_ DaVinci reject _him._ At the same time, he wants nothing but to be closer, to feel his warmth again, draw strength from someone who is so unburdened by shame, regret and ingrained doubt.

DaVinci turns his hand so they're now palm to palm, laces their fingers and Riario's heart beats faster, faster; hoping, wanting.

"Maestro!" Nico's panicked voice outside the cabin cuts through the miasma in Riario's head.

DaVinci twitches back before the door has fully opened, leaving Riario cold and stunned against the beam, frozen in place. He stares into the darkness of the cabin, hoping against hope that Nico will not note his state of undress.

"What?" DaVinci snarls.

"The chain pump," Nico gasps. "It stopped working. We're taking on water."

The inventive curse DaVinci mutters under his breath before he follows Nico should make Riario laugh, but all his mind has room for is the wish for the sea to swallow him.

***

His wish is nearly granted only minutes later. The window hatch tears away and pieces of timber crash through the window in the cabin, sending ice-cold water spraying inside and washing up to his ankles in the blink of an eye, shocking Riario out of his fugue. Outside, there's a cry of pain, of terror. _Nico_. He remembers pulling the boy toward the beach, half-drowned. Nico is a bad swimmer.

Riario reaches for the crutch, ignores the pain in his leg and hobbles, slipping, sliding over the swaying ground under his feet way toward the deck door.

When he pushes against the door, it refuses to open. It takes all his strength to even just crack it a fraction. The wind howls in and out again through the broken window, carrying with it the screams of the men, frantic. He keeps pushing, grunts through ground teeth at the force required.

When it finally opens, he wishes he would have stayed inside. The sea is a thing out of his worst nightmares as a child, lit in blinks by lightning, worse than the great flood must have been. It's a wild animal, a vast and furious beast, towering over the sides of the ship, blue-black masses of water whipped into an angry mountain-scape, biting at their ship. The waves stand as high as a cathedral. He missed all the storm’s rise, following his body's needs with DaVinci.

The wind screams in the masts like an accusing banshee.

The _Sentinel_ rocks, up and down, sinking into valleys and rising to wavetops fast enough, violently enough Riario has to loop his arm around the railing leading up to the deck lest he be washed overboard. His stomach does a somersault and he just manages to bite back on vomiting.

The hull groans, but underneath the creaking and the wailing wind, he hears DaVinci shouting orders, and Zoroaster and Nico shouting back. No one is manning the crank, so the damage to the chain pump must be under deck. Riario slips over the nearly fifty-degree angle of the deck toward the ship's hold – straight into Nico.

"I can help," he shouts against the roar. He has no idea how, but he cannot just sit and wait for death to take them all. It is not their time to die.

"Get the invalid out of the way," Zoroaster, with a bucket in hand, pushes at him, slips, nearly falls. Riario catches him just before he can knock his head into the door. He glares at Riario through hair that hangs wet and limp in his face. The wind mercifully tears the stink of the bilge water away.

"For fuck's sake, Zo, bail and get more men to help!" DaVinci shouts from the hold. "I can't work underwater!"

Nico holds on to Riario's upper arm to keep from slipping, bends closer and calls, "I can't do everything he asks while bailing at the same time. Get down and help."

Riario doesn't ask what to do, just grabs some of the rope slung loosely around the railing and makes his way below deck. The ship rolls and sways, making him slip and put weight on his bad leg that has searing pain shooting through his entire body. He pushes forward nevertheless, past pain and fear and the godawful stench of the bilge water. It's not as bad as it was during the past weeks, and that, Riario has learned from his first journey on the _Basilisk_ , is a bad sign, since it means that sea water is mixing with the sewage.

DaVinci is working under the light of an oil lamp that keeps crashing against the wall, the glass around it already shattered, the flame flickering in the draught.

"Give me that rope." DaVinci shouts at Riario without even pausing from where he's hanging onto the top of the chain pump like a human-shaped bat.

Riario throws the rope up and DaVinci catches it just before the ships rolls again and takes the light with it. In confusing flickers, he hears DaVinci's head crash against the planks. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Sloshing through the rising water, Riario manages to somehow get to the iron rod he remembers being used to hook up the ball to repair the broken chain. Above him, DaVinci drags the rope around the tall back case of the pump and secures it.

"The rod!" he shouts and Riario hands it to him, making sure DaVinci does reach it. If they lose the rod in the hold, they have no way to pull up the chain and repair the pump. No one will be able to dive after it in the dark. They'll sink inevitably. It's bad enough now, with the rising water sloshing around the ship's hold, making the ship ever more unstable.

"Get more men to bail!" he hollers against the shrieking storm when he sees Nico's blond head appear near the door. "We can't take on much more water."

The storm is shaking loose the tar and rope-filled gaps, making the seawater breach the planks, icy cold and menacing.

"Once I have the ball and chain, we'll need to get it over the top of the wheel and tie it down at the bottom of the pump."

"You take the top, I take the bottom," Riario says, staring at the dark water around him.

"So soon? Count, I never …" The lantern light flickers across DaVinci's face. He's grinning like a maniac, teeth gleaming white. "I'll get back to you on that."

Riario almost chokes, then laughs at the absurdity of the situation. "Shut up and work, Artista."

He has to hold on to DaVinci's legs when DaVinci nearly slips, trying to hook the rod into the ball and chain inside the pump's back casing. The water is up to Riario's chest now, biting into his skin with the cold teeth of death. His fingers grow numb, as do his legs. It's a mercy, at least regarding that. It will make diving easier – if not hooking the chain around the pump and securing it. The ship rolls and groans. Above them, something snaps, a sound like a cannonball being fired.

Nico's voice, shrill and panicked, "Zo, watch out!"

"I've got it!" DaVinci shouts, triumphant, pulling Riario's attention back to him. "I've got it, I've got it!" He moves as he tries to pull with all his might, and Riario loses his grip on him when one of the wine barrels slams into him and catches his bad leg. He groans in pain.

"Hold on, damn it."

Riario does. He somehow manages to adjust so the rolling motion of the ship and the water that now sloshes up to his chin don't affect him. He stabilises DaVinci long enough for the man to wind the chain and rope around the wheel. The end of the wheel slaps into Riario's face and he catches it between his teeth.

He motions for DaVinci to hold fast, then reaches for the rope and pulls it tight.

"Your leg, " DaVinci cautions, serious this time. "I can –"

Riario interrupts him, "It is irrelevant now. You need to secure the wheel and tighten the chain. Besides," he winks up at DaVinci, "I used to dive as a boy." He doesn't say that the last time he dove was more than a decade ago, before he began to work for Sixtus. If he doesn't remember how, the pump can't be used again and they will all die. He will not fail.

He takes several deep breaths, follows the line of the pump with his eyes, calculates from memory where he must go and dives under, into the icy darkness of the bilge.

***

His lungs burning, his fingers numb with cold, Riario somehow manages to hook the chain in the bottom of the pump, by sheer force of will rather than by knowing what he is doing. Saltwater stings his eyes, the cold makes him tired and sluggish. DaVinci pulls him out of the water by his arm just before he loses consciousness.

"Zo, Nico, crank!"

There's no answer from above, just more panicked shouting and an almighty crash that makes the ship shudder and roll even further. Riario remembers that sound from the _Basilisk_ and his heart stops for a beat. The main mast.

DaVinci claws his hands into Riario's arms, holding on to him so he doesn't get washed deep into the hold and crushed between the supply barrels.

"Up," he says. "We need to crank. Any more water in the hold and we won't have to worry about anything that happens up there."

A fatalistic voice in him whispers that, at this rate, they will likely get taken by the storm. It is more spite than belief that makes him push that voice down and follow DaVinci. He has not risked his life repairing the bilge pump to give up now.

They reach the top of the stair. DaVinci ducks as if under attack and pushes Riario down just in time to avoid a piece of rigging snapping through the air like a whip.

It was easier below deck when Riario didn't see the monstrous sea around him. With his clothes already wet from his dive, the storm tears the last bit of warmth from his body. Under his breath, and more out of habit, Riario murmurs the Pater Noster as the waves wash over the ship and make the _Sentinel_ shudder and groan alarmingly.

A towering wave catches the stern just as they manage to crawl onto deck on all fours. The bow pitches into the trough of the same wave, and in the brightness of one lightning strike, Riario sees Captain Sindona struggling white-knuckled at the wheel to keep the _Sentinel_ from yawing upwind, broadside on to the heaving waves. If they do, they’ll capsize as soon as the first waves rolls over them.

He also sees that no one is manning the crank.

"We're going to die," a voice wails from somewhere to his left. In the bright moment of one lightning, he sees a sailor clinging to the mizenmast. "Help us, Lord!"

Riario wants to yell at him to quit whining and do his part to help save the ship instead.

"He's right," the Boatswain, Cadamosto, shouts over the roar of the storm when he makes out DaVinci. "We need something to keep us going stern first into the waves or the damn rudders will break from the strain."

"Get your men and get to the fucking crank!" Riario bellows at Cadamosto.

"The pump—" Cadamosto begins.

"Is fixed," DaVinci shouts as well, "so you need to crank _now_."

Cadamosto shakes himself and grabs the nearest Rigger he can lay his hand on in the darkness. "Move, you piece of scum."

"Where are Nico and Zo?" DaVinci shouts at Cadamosto.

"Main … mast," Cadamosto yells back on his way to the crank without any further explanation.

The storm screams around them, a piece of sail slaps into DaVinci's face and makes him stumble into Riario. Riario barely catches him around his midriff. Instead of cursing, however, DaVinci shouts "Hah!" and scrambles to catch hold of the sail. Riario sees him grin like a madman in the following bolt of lightning, hair wet and wild in his face, blood running from the gashes the sail dealt him. DaVinci's mind, always active, never at rest, is already working out a solution to what Cadamosto said was required.

"Grab -- rope!" Even though he yells at Riario from such a close distance, the storm tears most of the sentence away.

Without thinking, Riario gropes blindly in the dark for the rope he saw near the winch to his right.

The angry sea batters the ship with larger and larger waves, throwing it from valley to peak like a nutshell. The _Sentinel_ rolls, no, _flounders_ and suddenly, it no longer goes into the waves nose first, but lists broadside, the sensation making his stomach flip-flop. It no longer rights itself. Nauseous and desperate, Riario clings to the rope with hands turned stiff from the cold and only barely manages not to get washed overboard. His heart hammers against his chest. The icy cold water drains the strength from his muscles and leaches the last warmth from his body. Salt stings in his eyes that he can't close because he needs the next lightning to make out if he's going in the right direction. The _Sentinel_ lists even further broadside and Riario gives up the fight: he empties his stomach's contents into the foaming water around him.

The _Sentinel_ is now rocked from side to side and if there's something he has learned about sailing by now, it is that being hit by waves broadside is an imminent death-sentence. Louder shouting from the men turns into terrified shrieking. "Fuck, the mast, the _mast_!"

In a new momentary blinding instance of lightning, Riario sees that the broken mast has tilted and slipped to the side and, with the rigging still attached, is pulling the _Sentinel_ broadside. There are not enough men near to cut it free. If they remain in this position and any more waves hit them there, they'll capsize, just like the _Basilisk_ did. Riario utters a frantic, habitual prayer and resumes his way toward DaVinci.

"Riario – rope!"

On his belly, more crawling than walking, Riario makes it to DaVinci's side. His leg, his entire body screams at him. He ignores it. If he gives in now, the mast will seal the _Sentinel's_ fate. He pushes forward, clawing his hands into the wet wood to steady himself on the _Sentinel_ 's deck's unnatural angle. He's not ready to die. Not today. Not like this.

He pulls on DaVinci's arm to bring him into hearing distance.

"I need to help –"

DaVinci's voice cracks on the answering shout. "Go, I can handle the rest alone."

Riario doesn't like the idea of leaving DaVinci here, even if he knows that he is needed elsewhere. This might be the last time they see one another. "Are you certain?" He claws his hand tighter into DaVinci's arm – to steady himself as much as to imprint the feeling into his memory.

"This is not the moment to get protective, _Count_."

Riario ignores the token protest, ties a piece of rope around DaVinci's midriff and secures it in a sailor's knot through one of the metal rings he can feel on the deck. "When, if not now?" They need DaVinci if they want to survive this. Whether or not DaVinci is touched by the Devil or by the Lord matters very little now, if he gets washed overboard, not even his brilliant mind can save him. And no one will save the _Sentinel_. They will all die.

Which they will at any rate if the men don't manage to cut the rigging and lose the mast. Riario continues to claw his way over the slippery deck toward the rigging, one foot at a time.

He needs to make it, needs to succeed. There are miles of angry water are all around him and below him, a freezing, dark abyss. Hell, tonight, is a cold, wet grave. He's not ready to face it. He clenches his teeth and wills the fear to subside, the fatalistic thoughts to quiet.

The _Sentinel_ lurches. Out of the dark, something crashes against him and Riario just barely manages to secure his arm in a piece of rope that he feels to his right. In the next flash of lightning, he sees a sailor getting washed over the railing, unable to hold on to anything on his way into the boiling ice of the sea. His scream is torn away by the gale force wind.

Teeth clenched now hard enough to grind them to dust, he pushes forward even harder. He has no idea, he realises when he lets go of the rope that just saved his life, how to cut the ropes of the rigging. He has no knife, no sword, nothing.

He shouts his frustration into the storm. " Lord, even if you have forsaken me, at least save this ship!"

"Riario!" Nico is carved out of the night by the next lightning, his wet hair clinging to his face. Like an avenging angel, he's holding an axe and a knife. A rope is tied around his midriff. Next to him, an unprotected Zoroaster hacks at the mast with another axe.

Fighting a groan of relief, Riario grabs the axe from Nico. "I take the mast, go and cut the rigging!"

Even though most of his strength is gone just from making his way here, Riario hacks at the mast and the surrounding rigging with all his might and sheer bloody-mindedness, working in perfect accordance with Zoroaster. How they manage not to hack off any limbs in the dark is a miracle, but Riario doesn't question it.

"YES! I've –" Nico begins as another wave rolls over the _Sentinel_ , pushes it even more to the side. Riario deals one last blow with his axe and without warning, the mast tears loose, torn away by the force of the wave. Next to him, Riario feels more than sees Zoroaster lose his hold and Riario lets go of the axe to grab Zoroaster's foot in the last second before he gets washed overboard as well. His muscles scream at the added strain.

With the mast gone, abruptly, on a sickening lurch, the _Sentinel_ rights itself. Zoroaster slams on the deck with a sound of pain that travels over the noise around them.

"Nico?" Riario had seen him secured by a rope, but there is no telling if the knot held. "Nico!"

A hand closes around his arm, clawing in a death-grip. "Here."

Riario sags in relief, hooks his arm through Nico's and holds on to him. He doesn't let go of the Dog either. It seems ludicrous to do so.

There's nothing they can do now. Either God helps DaVinci create a miracle to save them or they die. At least he won't be alone.

***

The miracle happens. DaVinci's contraption works, slows the _Sentinel_ and keeps it on course through the tempest.

The storm dies away by morning, leaving the _Sentinel_ afloat on a still rocky but moderately calming sea, rolling easily, while sunlight stabs through the scattering clouds. Everything is wet; the decks swept clean. Riario collapses against the planks, soaked, shivering, and exhausted but grateful and gratified in a way he's never been before.

DaVinci slinks close, grey with exhaustion, flops down next to Riario's left side, Nico to his right. Somewhere close to his feet, Vespucci and Zoroaster slump against the gunwale.

The Dog opens one eye, gives Riario a drowsy but determined look and mutters, "Don't expect me to say thank you, but –"

Riario nods and lets his head sink against the deck.

DaVinci gets up one last time, places a smacking kiss on each of them, then, lying down at a 90-degree angle, rests his head on Riario's stomach and falls asleep.

Warmth blooms from where he's lying. Riario looks up at the shreds of blue sky peeking through the clouds and allows himself a relieved, grateful smile.

***

The moon has been out for hours, turning the still uneasy sea into shades of silver and opaline where it reflects. The _Sentinel_ sways, rides wave valleys and peaks, stubbornly on course. The wind still tears at Riario’s clothes and hair and thoughts, leaving him shivering in the cold but his head blissfully empty.

A touch at his shoulders makes him tense. Riario clenches his hands around the railing, calculating how to reach the knife in his right boot, ingrained reflexes readying him for a fight. Nothing good ever comes from an unexpected touch.

"It's only me," DaVinci shouts against the wind. He drapes the leather coat tighter around Riario's shoulders when the wind threatens to blow it away. Closer now, DaVinci says, "Forgive me for interrupting, but I'd prefer not to have a frozen corpse in my bed."

His voice is light and unassuming, as though what happened in the cabin was something easy and natural, something to be repeated. It makes Riario want to crawl out of his skin with disquiet. He does not know how to navigate these waters, has neither experience nor an astrolabe to guide him.

DaVinci steps even closer after a while, close enough for Riario to feel his body heat against his back. As if it had never left, there it is again, that magnetic pull, that desire to be closer. It should not feel as natural as it does. Sodomy is a sin. It's something he has believed in ever since he first heard it, but what he and DaVinci did … it didn't feel wrong. Even half delirious with relief, cold and wet after the storm, he felt DaVinci's warmth and wanted more of it. Feel the touch of his hands, his lips: sure and enticing. It had been a struggle to keep his hand on the wet deck, a struggle not to reach out and pull DaVinci closer with everyone present. He shouldn't. He mustn't. He –

"I still keep thinking about that conversation we had a few weeks ago." DaVinci's voice, soft and low, is hard to hear over the sound of the wind in the sails.

Riario stays quiet and curls his hands tighter around the wooden railing. DaVinci doesn't have to elaborate for Riario to know exactly which of their conversations he is referring to.

He sees DaVinci follow his movement with his gaze.

"I was right, wasn't I?" He reaches out and Riario claws his hand into the railing, bracing himself. DaVinci surprises him by only setting his index fingers against the back of Riario's right wrist, following the shape of the bones visible through the skin.

"About what?"

"You expect pain and punishment at every given moment. "

He allows the words to journey through his mind before he admits to himself that DaVinci is correct. He does. It is what he was taught: Fail, face punishment. Make a mistake and either the monks or the Pope will use their fists or their belts to make sure you do not make it again. Riario can't remember a life before corporal punishment.

"What is that _like_?"

Riario looks over his shoulder at DaVinci. "Did your father never beat you?"

DaVinci snorts a mirthless laugh. The lines that appear around his eyes and mouth betray a pain that lies deeper than what he allows Riario to see. "Oh, plenty of times. I just always knew he was wrong."

The beatings, both from the monks and his father, were always painful, but they always happened for a reason, did they not? School at the monastery was about not making mistakes. What mistakes there were made were punished by beatings with a rod to his naked back. One strike for every mistake. Sister Ignatia said that pain was necessary to learn, even as she consoled him in letters.

"Do you think you deserve it?" DaVinci asks. He sounds incredulous.

"Are we not all sinners?" Riario asks. "Do we not all deserve punishment?"

"You're smarter than just regurgitating what the Church stuffs into the heads of the hapless. Tell me: Do _you_ believe you deserve it?"

Riario closes his hands around the wooden railing and rests his weight on his forearms. DaVinci's jacket slips from his left shoulder. He doesn't adjust it. Does he believe? It's not something he's ever _doubted_.

DaVinci's curse is inventive when Riario's silence stretches too long, even incorporates some of the Incan language. "No more." He says, breathing heavily. "Whatever it is they broke, whatever horrid, ludicrous things Sixtus and the Church made you believe, I can fix it. Fix you."

Riario smiles. DaVinci is always so sure of himself. There is no boundary for him. In a shamefully needy part of his soul, Riario wants to believe that DaVinci can do what he proposes. Of course, it can't be. "I have killed, DaVinci. I have broken the Fifth Commandment more times than I can count."

"On orders."

His former self, back in Italy, would have laughed at DaVinci's words. Trying to twist reality so that it fits his view of the world. The Riario he is now knows for certain that be it for faith or not, he has killed. Has forbidden himself to feel remorse. The more frequently he dealt death, the easier it became to not feel anything when he did. It was for a reason. He was the Sword of the Church. But what Church would demand so much death?

"I am a killer." He's had it thrown in his face so many times, but for the first time he accepts that it is true. He raises his head into the wind, fixes his eyes on the endless horizon. "I am beyond redemption."

"No one is. Isn't that what your faith teaches?"

Clever, clever man. Riario smiles. "For all that you denounce Christian faith, you know its teachings well."

"I find the original ideas commendable," DaVinci says. He looks earnest. "I simply do not like what the Church has made of them." A flicker of a smile, rueful. "A smart man, Jesus. I think he and I would have had great conversations."

"You and –" Riario guffaws and then can't stop himself laughing. It's so demonstrably megalomaniac, so demonstrably DaVinci.

DaVinci's smile slips, he turns serious again. "He taught forgiveness, did he not?"

Riario pulls himself together and inclines his head. "He did." It would be so easy to believe. So easy to accept. But nothing in life is ever easy, or given freely. Everything comes at a price. Though he wants, wants so badly to find the absolution he knows no man can ever give him. Only God can. And while – so obvious after the storm – God is clearly there, He seems to have decided to toy with Riario.

Riario wants clarity, just for once. To stop searching. Stop doubting himself. He doesn't believe he ever will, but, _Christ_ , he wants to.

"So let me try." DaVinci's voice is gentle, beseeching. Alluring. He's the devil tempting a sinner, promising salvation.

Even if DaVinci is the devil … Does it make a difference? What is one more sin, one more misstep? Riario's eternal soul is lost, was already lost after he first killed. For all that he has prayed and asked the Lord for forgiveness, he has never gone to confession. Maybe this, here, now, is his confession. Or his punishment. To have what he can never achieve, never have, presented to him, only to be snatched away again in the last moment. Would it be better to not know it, rather than yearn for it for the rest of his life? Or to know it and inevitably lose it again?

"I can fix your soul," DaVinci repeats, misunderstanding Riario's silence, and Riario _wants_ to believe him. Believe that the brilliant mind of this unusual man can fix everything that is broken and ugly and hopeless in Riario's soul. Maybe he can fix his faith as well. Or rather, replace it with a new one.

He makes one last attempt to stave off DaVinci’s temptation. "By seducing me?" His traitorous index and middle finger find DaVinci's mouth and outline the shape of his lips. His body has already decided, it seems.

DaVinci's lashes flutter. His smile spreads, slow. "As a pleasant step one."

Riario reaches for DaVinci's hand and places it over his heart. There is no saving him. But maybe, just maybe, he can pretend. For this night. For the rest of the journey.

When DaVinci kisses him, he lets himself fall: Offers up his body and soul and hopes against hope that DaVinci will catch him.


	10. Five Weeks in

**Five weeks in**

Walking grows easier with every day. He requires the cane, whittled into shape from a broken oar, but he can move without Nico helping him around. Riario can even, though with great difficulty, pull himself up the stairs to the forecastle and stare out at the sea. The endless sameness of the empty horizon both soothes his mind and unsettles him. It's too much and too little at the same time.

DaVinci disappears to work on the brazen head for longer and longer, making Riario wonder if his words after the storm were hollow after all.

Riario has transgressed against everything he's believed him, committed _sodomy_ and he has too much time to think about it. What unsettles him the most is that he's not sure he regrets it. And why should he? If God has stopped watching out for him, then why should he adhere to what His church teaches? With DaVinci, his mind and body opened up in a way they never did before. He felt _good_ , in a wholly unfamiliar way. But DaVinci is not here, he's occupied already, found another project, another thing to toy with. Riario slams his hand against the railing. The brazen head was there before anything happened between him and DaVinci. He's obsessing and needs something to take his mind off of his thoughts.

During the day, there's nothing but the men's daily fight against the sea trying to pull their nutshell of a ship under and the hunger and thirst that are constant companions now. Their last livestock drowned in the storm. If it weren't for the fish the sea provides, they would starve. At least God did not forsake the rest of the people on the Sentinel.

The ship sways on the glistening waves around them, the wind booms in the sails, and everything reeks of salt and iodine, unwashed bodies, rotting fruit and moulding hard tack from under deck.

Eventually, he distracts himself by teaching Nico how to handle the sword and continue his study of Latin. The mongrel and Vespucci eye them with ever growing suspicion, but they do not interrupt them as frequently as they did in the beginning. Even the mongrel seems to have realised that Nico is benefitting from Riario's teachings.

"Up," Riario says for the fifth time. "Keep the sword higher. Do not lose your cover. And mind your feet."

Sweat tints Nico's beige linen shirt darker against his back and under his arms. Riario can smell the exertion from where he is sitting. The boy needs a wash, badly. Then again, most of the men aboard do.

"I liked you better when you could walk," Nico huffs. "You were a fanatic, but at least not a grumpy fanatic."

Riario grits his teeth, ignoring the jab. "Back on the line," he orders, keeping his voice even. "Again."

"We've been doing this for an hour."

"And it will take months more to learn," Riario says. "Years to perfect."

"What, toeing a line?"

"Sword-fighting is not just about the physical aspects, Nico. You also need awareness and calmness. Serenity."

"And that's something _you_ want to teach him?" The Dog looks down from the forecastle; spits on the plank next to Riario. "The same man who completely loses his mind when it comes to a damn fairy tale book and to Leo?"

Taunts are easier to deflect when they do no strike so close to the mark.

Before Riario can answer, Nico has stepped forward, however. "I think dealing with Sixtus on a daily basis requires more patience and serenity than dealing with the Maestro." He lifts the sword – bad technique – and pokes Zoroaster's shoe with it. "Besides, he's a lot calmer than you."

Zoroaster makes a scoffing noise and Nico sighs and returns to the first position.

"Remember that you need to master the basics before you can advance: to be most effective, each attack and every counter requires correct distance and angle between you and your opponent."

Riario watches his wrists. He remembers how boring these drills were and knows how necessary to build both strength and reflexes. Nico’s intelligence works against him in this; he expects to be able to perform skills as quickly as he can grasp them. His body is slower than his wits, though.

Someday, however, he will wield his rapier as deftly as his words.

***

"Come here," DaVinci says when Riario enters the cabin. He's sitting cross-legged in front of the bed, a sketchbook in hand. Riario hasn't seen him sketch in days.

He closes the door behind him and waits there with his hand on the wooden handle that's polished by the many hands that opened and closed it before him. "Why?" he asks, both to be contrary and because he really is curious. Even though during the long, tedious days, he yearns for the time spent with DaVinci at night - if only because it takes his mind off the constant hunger and thirst - he does not want to appear like he will do his every bidding.

"Because I don't want to shout," DaVinci answers, a little petulant. "You're also out of touching distance."

Riario has learned that DaVinci is lavishly generous with his touches. It has considerably eased his mind which had insisted on resisting the idea of being with a man in the first days after the storm. "I fail to see the connection between speech and touch," he says, teasing.

"Then it's time you learned."

Riario rolls his eyes, but does move a few steps closer, curious.

"Take your shirt off."

Riario raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms in front of his chest. He will not be ridiculed.

"Oh, don't be such a prim flower," DaVinci says, impatience radiating from him. "I want to sketch you, all right? And eventually, I want to fuck you. For both, I need you less covered up."

Riario swallows and forces down his immediate reactions to DaVinci's words. His bluntness takes Riario by surprise time and time again. "And who says that I would be a willing participant to your plans?"

"I do." DaVinci leans back against the bed, at ease with himself. He looks Riario up and down, slow and suggestive. "And even though you have an admirable control over your body's reactions, and you did manage to mostly hide your irritation, your nipples also just tightened when I mentioned fucking you." He lets his pencil clack against his teeth. His eyes have a speculative glint. "I say you would be a very willing participant."

"You are very blunt."

"And you are very good at stating the obvious. Doesn't that get boring?" He waves the hand with the book at Riario. "Come, tell me something that's not boring. And take the damn shirt off."

"It is all about you not being bored." He really should be taking offence. Should leave. But, like a fool, he doesn't. It's too intriguing to see where DaVinci's mind will be going, what his hands will create. Additionally, his skin has become worryingly used to DaVinci's touch and he craves it during the day when he must go without. He is also vain enough to be curious about how DaVinci will capture him on paper.

"Stating the obvious again." DaVinci huffs, annoyed. "You already know this. Tell me something new."

Riario pauses, trying to think of the least boring thing he can find. It would be the Book of Leaves, of course, but his mind shies away from it like a wild animal from fire. Zita's ghost lingers in the shadows. "I once visited the library of Cordoba," he says, more to distract himself. "It is said to have contained over 400.000 books at the time of al-Hakam II. Can you imagine? Even the Vatican Secret Archives do not contain that many books." The sheer magnitude of tomes, the air of knowledge and power in those long and high-ceilinged vaults had stunned and spellbound him.

DaVinci looks intrigued – and sets the pen to the sketchbook. "Many collections were scattered after the Reconquista," he says as he begins to sketch – alternating looking at Riario and the book. "So much knowledge, lost."

Riario opens a lace on his shirt and sees DaVinci's pupils dilate slightly. The pencil scratches over the paper. DaVinci's right hand moves in the air, fingers fluttering.

"A tragedy indeed." Riario takes a step closer. "Yet a chance to seek and learn and discover wisdom instead of just consuming it like a stale wine. Even in translations, we discover new. We employ our intellect and – What?"

DaVinci has let the pencil sink. He stares at Riario with such delight that Riario feels blinded for a breath. "You get it, don't you?" DaVinci asks. "You felt it, too, on our way to the Vault of Heaven. That pure joy that lies in discovery; in solving a problem with just your mind."

The Vault of Heaven. Zita's blood is on his hands again, warm and sticky. He can't draw his next breath. The Incan chants are in his head, loud and frantic.

_No_. He slams the door in his mind shut but the tension has made all his muscles tense; his heart beats unpleasantly hard against his skin.

"Hey." DaVinci's hand is on his face, bringing him back to the here and now. The line of the pencil digs into his cheek. "Tell me about Cordoba. Or better yet, tell me if you managed to lay your hand on Maimonides' _Kitab as-sumum_. _ **[1]**_" He moves his hand, letting it slowly travel to Riario's shirt collar. He pushes the pencil underneath the lace and pulls at it slightly. "And lose that shirt already."

The fact that DaVinci might actually be capable to talk of a treatise on poisons while thinking of carnal pleasures at the same time make Riario laugh – more out of habit than because he truly feels the amusement. He takes the pencil from DaVinci and lays it back on the sketchbook. It is his decision now. Give himself over to his familiar demons, familiar teachings or fight them. Choose something different, just for himself.

A deep breath. A decision.

He unlaces every fastening of his shirt slowly, giving DaVinci time to sketch. It is both exhilarating and unsettling, to be under such close scrutiny, to have every inch of skin he reveals be subject to an artist's eye. He's doing it with the light of the sun filtering through the unbattened window, too, not in the shameful dark, the way it should be, considering the acts of sodomy he's committing. Out here on this ship, in the blamelessness of the sea, he finds it easier to ignore or resist certain teachings.

Riario has overheard maids talking about him, describing him in very frank, appreciative words when they cleaned his rooms and thought he wasn't present. He always keeps himself in fighting shape, so he knows, rationally, that his body is pleasing to the eye and he is vain enough to want to keep it that way.

DaVinci watching and sketching him, though, the tangerine-golden glow of the evening sun warming both DaVinci's skin and his eyes, reflecting on the moisture on his lush lower lip where he keeps licking it … it's different from clinical knowledge. It's gluttonous. Thrilling.

"The breeches, too," DaVinci orders when Riario's shirt is in a crumpled heap on the floor. He has his gaze glued to the sketchbook. Riario can make out his own torso on the page, the line of his neck and his jaw. His face is hidden, maybe undrawn.

"I suggest you return the favour," Riario says. It's both resistance and pure self-indulgence.

DaVinci looks up in surprise and grins, delighted. He tears off his shirt and shimmies out of his breeches, then sits back down and reaches for the sketchbook, wholly unconcerned about his nakedness. From just behind the book, Riario can see DaVinci's cock half erect. He swallows and begins to unlace his own breeches.

"No, wait," DaVinci says. "Turn around."

Riario does and hears DaVinci murmur under his breath, "My god, you are perfect, aren't you? Look at your hipbones, at the way your back curves to your arse. Look at your muscle definition. Look at that even proportion."

Riario knows his back is marred by scars. He wishes he were more covered again. DaVinci's narration makes him feel naked even though he still has his breeches on. He utters the next words just to say something to fill the silence. "Perfection is not reserved for man."

The pencil clacks down on the wooden planks. "For fuck's … Do you know why I hate the Church? What it represents?" DaVinci says. He sounds angry. "Because of utter rubbish like that. Tell me, of what use are those fat old men who do nothing but try to restrict what we know to the things that are easy to comprehend, that are nicely black and white?"

DaVinci doesn't say the name, but Riario thinks of the Vatican Archives, the way the knowledge in them was acquired and is now locked away to keep the masses quiet and pliant, and agrees.

"People like damn Sixtus and his ilk," DaVinci continues, "they see beauty but they are blind to its true nature, because they're too blind to really study the human body."

Riario bites back a scathing comment on what Sixtus studies and how. It is not the kind of study DaVinci refers to, after all.

"You are a pious man, so tell me: If man was created in the image of God, and God is perfection, doesn't that mean perfection must be present in his creation? In you and me?"

Riario turns slowly and sees that DaVinci is standing now, the sketchbook forgotten on the floor. In it, Riario glimpses his own back, the waistband of his breeches sitting low on his hips, light from the porthole reflecting off his skin. All that, in mere minutes, and with a pencil. And yet "You … are a heretic," he says. It's easier to judge, to use well known reprimands than to allow himself to see.

DaVinci smiles and Riario thinks DaVinci saw exactly what went through his head. "You told me that God was love in the dust, didn't you?"

Though he would prefer not to think of the Incan prison cell, Riario nods.

"The Church is not the same as God, though, is it? Faith and the Church are not the same thing."

The question of the nature of faith is one he has grappled with a lot in the past weeks and he has not found a satisfactory answer to. He used to believe faith in God and faith in the Church were one and the same.

If DaVinci won't let the subject go, Riario can at least attempt deflection. "It is a little bizarre to have a naked, aroused man in front of me, lecturing me on faith."

DaVinci laughs. "We just need to both be naked and aroused, then it is less bizarre." DaVinci steps closer and runs his hands over Riario's arms, his chest and sides, firm, warm and curious.

Riario shivers at the touch.

"Faith is love," DaVinci says, not dropping the subject. "Is it not?" He steps closer and places a butterfly kiss between Riario's collarbones.

Riario balls his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out and curling his hand in DaVinci's hair which teases his skin. He wants, but he doesn't know how to ask. How to reciprocate without his mind screaming doubt at him. Doubt about what they are doing. Doubt about himself. Doubt about DaVinci's motives.

DaVinci trails his lips down Riario's sternum, the segue from drawing to talking to touching completely fluent.

"But love," a kiss to his heart, just shy of his nipple, "is the offspring of knowledge, and the passion of love grows in proportion to the certainty of knowledge." DaVinci's lips are on his nipple now, his tongue laves at it. Shivering arousal floods his veins and Riario bites back on a low groan. "Like the certainty I have that you are really enjoying this right now, no matter what ridiculous thing you had pounded into your skull before."

Riario gasps for breath and tries to push DaVinci away when the sensation gets too much. "It is against God's will."

DaVinci bites his pectoral. Riario yelps. "Use your mind, man. I know you can." He soothes the bite with light kisses. "You are better than this. God wouldn't have given us bodies that are capable of pleasure and then expected us not to explore them." He lifts his head to press a heated kiss to Riario's lips that tastes salty from Riario's own skin. "Anyone who says differently lies to control us." Another kiss, hard and demanding. "Don't let anyone control you, Girolamo. Make your own decisions." He rolls his hips against Riario's, brushing their cocks together. "I know you want to."

Oh, but DaVinci is clever. He speaks with his body and his mouth. His hands trail over Riario's skin while he murmurs heretic words and they sink into Riario, making him doubt what he knows, making him think about what he took for granted, making him see what he has been blind to before. He should hate DaVinci for it, but instead, he finds himself yearning for those hours at night where they talk about science and literature, about faith and belief. DaVinci is with him, around him, in him, figuratively and literally, letting him stretch his mind in a way that was closed off to him before.

"The more we know about nature, the more we can be certain of what we know, and so the more love we can feel for nature as a whole. The human body is part of nature. As is the human mind. And you … " He draws a deep breath. "Look at you. You are worth learning more of. You are worth getting to know."

Riario doesn't ask if that means he's worthy of love as well. He won't allow himself to travel down that road. Not when DaVinci's clever hands are unfastening his breeches and pushing them off his hips. Riario feels his cock swell and DaVinci hums when he notices, drops to his knees and noses and kisses his way from Riario's stomach muscles to his hipbones, back to his bellybutton and lower, lower. Riario is breathing hard now. He sways when the ship rolls and DaVinci steadies him, hands gentle but firm on his hips, fingertips just digging into the top of Riario's buttocks.

Instead of doing what he's teasing at and what Riario's cock strains for, DaVinci reaches for Riario's hand. "Such elegant fingers," he murmurs and runs his fingertips along the digits. "You should be playing an instrument."

He did, once. Before the Book. The warm tone of the Viola da Gamba was a soothing sound that kept him company many a night. It's not really what he wants to think of now, though. He's much too preoccupied with DaVinci's perfect mouth so close to his cock, close enough he can feel DaVinci's breath cooling the liquid beading at the tip.

DaVinci smirks, brushes a light kiss to the side of Riario's cock, then moves away and presses a kiss to the centre of Riario's palm. His tongue is warm and moist, and fuck, Riario wants, he wants him so much it hurts, but he will not force him. He sucks in a sharp breath, fingers twitching involuntarily. DaVinci glides his lips to Riario's thumb, watching, studying, painting lines with his lips.

Riario's breath is laboured; he's clenching his teeth to keep the sounds from spilling out of him, the encouragements, the pleas.

DaVinci smiles up at him, a warm but dangerous smile, full of gentle mischief. He draws a lazy circle around his middle finger with the tip of his tongue before closing his teeth around the soft swell of flesh, biting down with gentle pressure.

Riario jerks, a groan ripping from what seems like the very bottom of his vocal range.

DaVinci's smile slips, his pupils blows wide. "Just think, this is what happens when I focus on your finger. And I'm just getting started."

Riario's patience snaps. He leans down, kisses DaVinci – open mouthed, deep, with all the skill he possesses. When DaVinci is panting against him as well, he draws back just a fraction and murmurs against DaVinci's lips: "I would prefer it if you put your mouth to a better use."

DaVinci's answering, approving smile is blinding and in the blink of an eye, Riario finds himself tackled to the bed, his legs spread and DaVinci approaching with the sleekness of a predator, his hair falling into his eyes, the light from the porthole haloing him from behind.

"So you like my mouth," DaVinci states and presses a smiling kiss to Riario's knee, just above the ugly scar the broken bone left.

"You are very good at stating the obvious," Riario throws back at him. He hooks his leg around DaVinci's shoulder to get him to move. "Does that not ever get boring?"

DaVinci smiles even wider, his cheeks dimpling and his nose scrunching up in amusement and something like pride. It is a look to get drunk on, addicted to.

DaVinci escapes Riario easily. "Oh, but I am _studying_." He kisses higher, moist lips against the inside of Riario's thigh. "And I am a firm believer in all studies being vain and full of errors unless they are based on experience and can be tested by experiment."

"What –" Riario lets his head fall back against the bed, "is the fucking experiment here?"

DaVinci licks a long strip along the underside of Riario's cock and Riario curls up, meeting DaVinci's laughing eyes. His heart slams against his chest.

"You," DaVinci says.

[1] _Treatise on Poisons and Their Antidotes, an early toxicology textbook._


	11. Six weeks in

**Six weeks in**

As if to defy the hunger and thirst aboard following the storm, Nico gets better with every day of training. His situational awareness has risen exponentially, and even his footwork slowly gets better.

Riario watches with something akin to pride. Nico will soon be able to hold his own in a swordfight, should the opponent not be an expert swordsman. His timing requires work, however. He has not found the ruthlessness and the deception necessary to survive against a stronger opponent.

They still have time. Too much time. There is no land in sight, and with the main mast finally fixed but fragile, they have to be careful with the main sail. Without training Nico during the day and having DaVinci to distract him, mentally and physically, he might develop the same slightly crazed look in his eyes several of the sailors have.

"Stop," he calls to Nico, shaking himself. "Come here."

Nico lowers the sword, point down and steps closer to where Riario is sitting on the stairs leading up to the forecastle. Good. After he almost stabbed Vespucci during their first sessions, Nico has learned proper caution with the blade.

"What?" Nico asks. He's breathing heavy.

"You watched DaVinci with the sword, have you not?"

"Yes," Nico agrees. "I don't see what –"

"What did you notice?"

"Most of the time, I was too busy being impressed that he could handle two swords at the same time."

"That sounds like an impressive ability."

"What do you mean by 'sounds like'?" DaVinci, who appears to have lost interest in the brazen head and has come to find a distraction, asks.

Riario shrugs. He's in a good mood this afternoon and teasing at DaVinci's vanity comes easily. "I have never seen it. Maybe it is nothing but a myth. And impractical myth at that." Handling two swords at the same time invariably would make them get in the way of one another.

"You've fought me before."

"Our adversarial encounters in fights have always been hand-to-hand or across a distance," he reminds DaVinci. "We have fought on horseback, or with the muzzle of a gun between us, not with a sword."

"Or several muzzles of several guns." DaVinci winks.

"Ah, the pipe organ musket. Yes, that was rather a clever bluff." One that he still takes personally. His ears had rung for days after. "Is your ambidextrousness one of those clever bluffs as well?"

DaVinci's feathers ruffle visibly. "Nico," he shouts. "Your sword. And get me Zo's as well." He takes off his open shirt and rolls his shoulders.

"Show off," Zoroaster states as he hands DaVinci his sword.

"Always." DaVinci opens his arms wide with both swords in hand and laughs, then focuses on Riario. "So, get your sword, _Count_. Let's see if you can fight a genius."

"I will be glad to show young Nico how to handle self-important opponents, _Artista_."

DaVinci's grin is feral and suggestive at the same time. Muscles flex under skin tanned golden by the sun. He makes an inviting gesture. "Come on, then. Show me."

Riario peels his lips back in an answering smile. From the corner of his eye, he sees Nico take a step back and Zoroaster motion for Vespucci. They're betting. Of course they are.

They circle one another, slowly, like birds of prey. Riario has never seen DaVinci fight up close, so he doesn't know his weaknesses. He does try to make sure the sun is behind him, though, so he's not blinded. It has the pleasant side-effect of the sun glinting on DaVinci's skin. But, no. That way lies distraction, and he has learnt the hard way that he cannot, ever, underestimate an opponent.

The swords clang, first testing, then striking in earnest, each contact, each parry travelling down Riario's muscles and into his bones, familiar and gratifying. It becomes easy to settle into the routine.

Just as easy as the rhythm of bare skin on bare skin later in their cabin.

DaVinci drags Riario with him and kisses him as soon as the door is closed, hard, enthusiastic. Riario's never had a laughing, joyful lover before and it feels so good to just swim in the ecstasy, bask in the feelings and laugh in return.

***

The storm damaged many of their water barrels. What is left is brackish and algae-infested. Nico gags when he thinks about the ration he is about to receive, even if his tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth already.

Since the wood for the cooking fire got so wet it made distilling sweet water from seawater impossible, DaVinci still complains of the lost opportunity to gather rainwater in the storm, but what is lost is lost. Before the cooper repaired the barrels, they had no way to store the water in any case.

Nico is thirsty, always thirsty. They catch enough fish to not go hungry, but that steady diet of fish is beginning to make him nauseous as well. At least it’s fresh and moist. The spoiled hard tack is worse than nothing.

They lost five men to the storm. The crew has rigged the sails to function without the main mast, but the chain pump is in operation day in day out to keep the bilge from flooding. It exhausts the crew, and leaves them hungrier and thirstier than they would normally be. The squeak-grind noise of the pump follows Nico even into his dream. Only its silence would be worse.

Even Zo is beginning to lose his seemingly permanent cheer. He and Amerigo gamble for their daily rations, which usually sees one of them going hungry or thirsty that day. Nico plays once, loses immediately and nearly goes crazy with thirst that day until Riario slips him some of his water.

Riario has changed. There even is a reluctant respect toward Zo from him now. Nico isn't sure how he feels about that.

Riario and the Maestro … Nico isn't sure how he feels about what they do, either. He knows that DaVinci does not limit himself to one sex, but he never expected Riario to be the same.

Christ, but they're loud at night. It's as if they're defying the boredom, hunger and thirst by fucking each other's brains out. And that … that's the next thing that bothers Nico. Not so much that it makes him fist his own cock desperately every night, listening to their sounds. He knows it's them and not Vito and Matteo, because he knows how DaVinci sounds and he knows about Riario, too, remembers hearing him bed Zita on the _Basilisk_ , how her gasps were low and full of pleasure and Riario's were deep, bitten off and overwhelmed by his body's needs.

Nico is used to cramped spaces and listening to people having sex and the effect it has on his body. No, that's not what disturbs him. If DaVinci were just fucking Riario, and Riario were fucking him, that wouldn't bother Nico. Some of the other sailors are doing it as well, and he sometimes wonders if Zo and Amerigo don't have something going on as well. But this is more. More from both sides. DaVinci has that gleam in his eyes he only gets when he wants to figure something out, and Riario seems to be the object of his latest obsession. Though he would never admit it, Riario is thriving under that attention, looking more at home in his own skin than Nico has ever seen him, even with Zita still alive.

Nico has seen DaVinci’s interest fade all too often, though. He can't help but wonder when DaVinci will have enough of the riddle that is Riario. Nico doesn't want to be in Riario's shoes when it happens. He doesn't want it for Riario full stop, no matter the man's past, because he remembers only too well how it feels to be left alone, to have the light that is Leonardo DaVinci turn away and shine elsewhere.

***

By day, DaVinci spends his time calculating the _Sentinel_ 's course, repairing whatever the ship needs or working on the brazen head, growing increasingly frustrated with it. Come evening, though, he returns to find Riario, who spends his evenings on the forecastle, staring out at the sea.

"Time is a river," Da Vinci says, staring out at the sun painting the wave crests red-golden. His hand finds Riario's forearm and runs up and down, restless, mindless but oh so welcome. "That's what Al Rahim said. I keep thinking about that. In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which still flows. That would make time linear, wouldn't it? What has passed has passed, never to return, always reborn."

DaVinci talks to Riario as an equal, corroding his beliefs even further, but building up something new instead: Riario’s faith in himself as something more than a mere hammer.

"What does that make the sea?" Riario asks, playing with the metaphor, enjoying the chance to utilise his mind after a day full of mundane tasks. He enjoys training Nico and taking over the calculations from DaVinci, but it does not satiate his mind's need for intellectual stimuli. "The waves change direction with the wind. You have no one certain direction. Does that make the sea timeless? A liminal place between heaven and hell, never to stop, never to end, like a circle?"

DaVinci looks like he wants to disagree at first but halts. His fingers begin to drum against Riario's arm. "But time is measurable by simple physics." His left hand indicates the first stars that are beginning to pierce through the darkening evening sky. "The orbital periods of the celestial bodies are regular and eternal. The sun rises and sets, one day is one day."

"Longer in summer than in winter, however."

"That does not change the fact that a day is always a day. And a month always a month. One lunar cycle to the next. A start and an end. Time is fixed. And you cannot step into the same river's water twice."

"But could we perceive time without thought?" Riario asks. He leans against the forecastle's railing and looks at the ropes strung around a mast leading up to the lower sail. "Would it still exist?" He trails his index finger over the back of DaVinci's hand, following fragile bones and prominent blood vessels. "Or do we not need our consciousness to acknowledge it?"

DaVinci draws a breath as if to answer, then releases it again, thinking.

"Maybe," Riario says, thinking of his reading of Aristotle and the rare books on Buddhist teachings he found in the Vatican archives. "Maybe time is nothing but a concept. If we only experience it by way of our consciousness, then we create it, do we not?"

"Which would mean that time could be different to you and me." The thrumming of DaVinci's hand on Riario's arm gets more intense, disturbing the fine hairs and tickling. Riario slides his hand underneath DaVinci's quell the sensation instead of stopping the movement he now knows is linked to DaVinci's thought process. "But if time needs to be perceived, we still require something to relate it to." To their side, the sail flaps in the wind and the rope squeaks against dry wood. "A system, a succession of events. As long as we follow the same system, we have the same concept of time."

"But a mindless person who cannot grasp that system would not perceive time." It is a fascinating thought.

"Or perceive it differently." DaVinci's hand stops, curls around Riario's for a brief moment, squeezing. "Maybe that is what Al Rahim meant when he said that the river was circular. Maybe, if we had a different system and perceived the succession of events that occurred in relation to _that_ system, time would be different for us."

The solution is too simple. "But would that person not simply follow the same rules, just with a different system, thus perceiving time the same way, just under different circumstances?"

DaVinci lets go of him, his gestures going wide, flying as his mind does. "So what if there were no conditioned things, no system? Would there be no time? Would we live eternally?"

"But is eternal not a concept that stems from our limited idea of time?"

Out of the blue, DaVinci kisses him with enough enthusiasm their teeth clack. When he pulls back, he is looking so happy Riario has to close his eyes lest he burn in the brightness. "Thank you." DaVinci's tunnels his hand under Riario's shirt and rests it in the small of his back, a warm, enticing anchor. "I'm glad you're here," DaVinci says, and he sounds sincere enough Riario believes him. Little by little, DaVinci has sown hope into his mind, and it is growing root with the stubbornness of a weed. "My mind would rot if I only had coordinates to calculate." DaVinci's hand curls a little and dips lower without a warning, giving Riario's rear a squeeze. "My prick would probably rot as well."

Riario rolls his eyes and removes DaVinci's hand. "Concentrate. We were having a conversation."

"I can fuck you and talk at the same time."

"That, I do not doubt."

"Why are we still here, then? Unless you want an audience?" DaVinci waggles his eyebrows. He looks ridiculous enough Riario laughs.

"Will you never get tired of the pleasures of the flesh?"

"It's not just sex." DaVinci gives a lewd grin. "Though I'm really enjoying that."

"What on earth is it then?"

"It's what you say and think after, when your guard is down and your mind isn't locked in a cage." Hearing those words is addictive and he wants more. Riario is falling and he knows that it will destroy him, but God help him, he can't stop. He knows and can't un-know again.

DaVinci twists his hand out of Riario's grip and moves it toward the back of his neck, fingers stroking the sensitive skin under Riario's ear, making him shiver. "Besides, learning never exhausts the mind," DaVinci says, looking earnest for once. "And I still have lots to learn when it comes to you." He moves closer and murmurs against Riario's neck, his words puff warm and moist against Riario's skin. "I want to learn what it feels like when you fuck me. What you look like when you move inside me."

Riario swallows hard; desire slams through his body. He catches DaVinci's mouth in hungry, open-mouthed kisses and doesn't care who sees them. They just barely make it to their cabin.

***

"I knew it," DaVinci says after, his fingertips drawing on Riario's back. Arabic this time, if Riario's not mistaken. It's unclear to what DaVinci's refers.

"That I could fuck you?" Riario asks with a wry smile.

DaVinci stretches under him like a languorous cat. "That, I knew from day one. You just had to get there first. Earn it."

Riario tenses and DaVinci flattens his hands between Riario's shoulderblades, obliterating the words written into his skin. "Don't fret. I wasn't demeaning you."

"What were you doing then?" Riario asks. He pushes up, trying to move away. "Telling me that I had to be trained like a dog first before I could –" DaVinci curls his legs around Riario's and makes moving impossible lest Riario fight him in earnest.

"Shhh," DaVinci places a finger of Riario's lips to stop him, then kisses him quickly. "No need to be a martyr."

"I'm not dying for my cause."

"Then I clearly haven't let you fuck me hard enough." He rolls his hips up against Riario's and, shamefully easy, Riario lets himself be distracted.

They kiss. Riario loses himself in the blissful cleverness of DaVinci's lips and tongue and hands. It's only when they're both wound up like tight coils, DaVinci breathing fast and Riario stumbling toward another release that DaVinci stops and flips them, pins Riario's hands to the bed by his wrists.

Riario's gaze flickers to DaVinci's face, to the hair hanging around his face, the kiss-swollen lips, the flush in his cheeks.

"You're beautiful, did you know that?" DaVinci murmurs. He bends down to kiss Riario's temple, claustrophobically close.

Riario closes his stinging eyes. "I am not a woman."

"Beauty is not reserved for the female sex," DaVinci says, a smile in his voice. He kisses Riario's closed eyelids. "You –" Another kiss, this time to his eyebrows. "Are beautiful."

More lingering kisses, peppered all over Riario's face, but never meeting his mouth. He undulates under DaVinci, trying to get him to move, to do what he has learned makes DaVinci weak.

DaVinci is not swayed this time. He takes his time kissing from Riario's face to his neck, his chest, his heart. After a teasing lick to his nipple that has a lightning-bright sensation rushing through Riario's body, DaVinci stops. "Underneath all the layers, you have a brilliant mind and a good heart."

"How would you know?" Riario asks, hating how breathless he sounds.

"Because I have worked on stripping them all away. I see you, Girolamo Riario. And I like what I see."

Riario swallows against the lump forming in his throat, blinks against the tears forming in his eyes. He wants to believe what he hears. Wants it so badly he'd sell his soul for it.

He has never experienced pleasure - physical and mental - quite like this. Nor so often. Whenever he thinks he is finally sated, he finds himself craving more: more stimulus for his mind, for his soul. More sex. More being at ease with himself. More carefree laughter. More acceptance. More touch. More confidence in himself. More kisses. More of everything. Everything. It's spread out before him, a world that is his to take, so many opportunities, so much of everything he's wanted but never allowed himself to ask for.

DaVinci rolls his hips, sucks at Riario's nipple and smiles bright as the sun at the twitch of Riario's cock and his moan. "And I'm letting you fuck me because I think you're finally starting to believe me when I say it." He lifts himself easily and sinks down on Riario's cock.

Riario gasps, moans, nearly whines. It is so good, the tight heat, the feel of DaVinci's legs at his sides, DaVinci's hand cradling his balls even while he's riding Riario's cock, the slap of their bodies together. It's over embarrassingly quick, but DaVinci kisses him like he's precious, like Riario matters and in the weakness of the aftermath, for the first time, Riario lets himself believe. He answers what DaVinci isn't saying. It is like a prayer, quiet worship, with nothing but his hands and lips and body.

For the first time in his life, he is a heretic, but feels like he belongs.


	12. Eight Weeks in

**Eight weeks in**

Nico's footwork has advanced considerably over the past weeks. He is a lot more light-footed than he was in the beginning.

"Remember when I asked you about your Maestro's sword-fighting?" Riario asks one morning during their training session.

"I remember the posturing that followed after."

Riario plasters a smile on his face and forces down his body's reaction to the memory of what followed after their mock fight. "What did you notice about him? About us?"

Nico eyes him – a mixture between a dare and respect in his gaze. "Besides the fact that you wanted to –" he coughs, over the top, "best one another," another cough, "in battle?"

Riario shifts, opening his body language, his head raised. "If you have something to say, say it."

Nico meets his gaze, holds it for a few long breaths, then shakes his head. "It's none of my business."

Nico looks away and pretends to watch one of the sailors, Matteo, fervently crossing himself before climbing up the mast to the crow’s nest to take watch. The sailors run a constant risk of falling, so he understands the sentiment. As does Flavio, the slight, dark-haired young man from Sicily, who is watching his companion climb up. He's muttering under his breath, likely a prayer for the fellow seaman. A broken bone can mean death out here. Riario was lucky that after his fall, he had Nico and DaVinci.

"What did you notice?" Riario asks Nico again.

"Skill, grace, speed."

"Do you notice any patterns?"

"Hardly."

"That is what makes him such an expert swordsman. Patterns make you vulnerable to your opponent. Breaking those patterns can also open you to an attack. They are important for training, but you must not let your opponent recognise them and use them against you. You must out-think before you can out-fight anyone."

Nico nods. "So, have as many as I can and vary them?"

Riario inclines his head, smiling. "For the beginning, yes. You will progress the more you train. For now, I want you to stop."

"Stop?"

"Stop trying to be noble. Stop trying to be fair."

"I thought that was the whole point?"

Riario laughs. The boy still has romantic notions and a lot to learn. "Does your maestro fight fair?"

Nico looks over his shoulder to where DaVinci is talking to Captain Sindona. "No," he concedes. DaVinci would need to be stumbling drunk with one hand tied up to offer most men a fair fight.

"And that is the whole point," Riario says. "You have mastered the basics now, you have learned how to use your sword, but you need to learn deception."

Nico visibly squirms at the idea.

Riario pushes himself into a standing position. His leg is mending and he can go short ways without the crutch, though most of the time, he still hobbles along slowly and uses the crutch to help with the ever present rolling motions of the ship. He picks up the second sword.

"Attack me," he tells Nico.

"You're …" Nico motions and doesn't finish the sentence.

A cripple, Riario hears. An invalid. He closes his hand tighter around the sword's hilt. "Attack."

Nico does, though half-hearted. Riario feigns weakness, even fear, due to his leg and Nico's attack grows even slower, more careful. Riario uses the boy's hesitance to his advantage and attacks strongly, glancing down at Nico's leg and stopping with the sword against the trousers' fabric. The metal glints against the salt-encrusted linen.

"In a real fight, you would have only one leg left to stand on now."

Nico flushes crimson. "Again."

This time, Riario feigns to jump aside when Nico attacks. The blink of an eye Nico relaxes, Riario uses to dash in strongly. "You would be dead again."

He hears Nico grind his teeth. Good. Anger will make this even easier – and provide another valuable lesson.

"Again!" Nico demands.

Riario gives a little bow. "As you wish."

He steps in and, both hands on the sword's handle, prepares to deliver a full force overhead attack on Nico with speed and intent. Showing that his training did have effect, Nico parries the attack with the forte of his sword. Without giving Nico time to breathe or think, Riario pretends to strike overhead again. Nico prepares to parry again, sword raised, left leg forward, bent slightly at the knee as they trained, staring at Riario to keep him in his sight. But Riario only pretends to look at his head. Nico's leg is in his peripheral vision, and while Nico still expects him to repeat the first attack, Riario sidesteps him, moves the sword to his strong hand and drops his attack to Nico's foremost leg. He rests the sword there and simply raises and eyebrow at Nico's flushed face.

"Damn it," Nico gasps. "How do you do that?"

Riario lowers the sword. "Deception. Feinting. Creativity. Speed."

"How long did it take you to master all that?"

"Years," Riario answers. Not at the monastery, of course, but the Swiss guard had been very helpful in that regard.

"Lovely." Nico drops his sword and sits down heavily.

"Don't fret," Riario says. "With patience and persistence, you will get there."

"When?"

"When you are prepared to face an opponent who uses every weapon, you will be ready to use them yourself."

Nico drops his head against the gunwale with a huff and rolls his eyes. The sun catches on his locks and gives him that strange halo that makes Riario think of the archangel Uriel time and time again.

A frown line appears between Nico's eyebrows; his eyes narrow as he focuses on something above Riario's head, just by the large sail.

"What is Flavio doing there?"

Riario turns and follows Nico's gaze. His muscles seize. Flavio, the sailor he saw muttering under the mast earlier has climbed up the ropes leading toward the lookout atop the mast. He's stopped just underneath the large sail, clinging to the ropes. He has an oil lamp in one hand and is calling something. Riario can just make out some of the words he's shouting against the wind. " _Dies irae. Dies illa."_

"What does he need the lamp for?" Nico asks. "It's bright daylight."

"Get Captain Sindona," Riario orders without taking his eyes off Flavio.

"Wh —"

"Now!"

Nico scrambles up and moves, not asking any more questions. Riario closes his hand around the sword's hilt and limps his way toward the forecastle, slowly, keeping Flavio in his sight at all times.

From the corner of his eyes, he sees DaVinci and Sindona running toward the mast, stopping with their heads up, looking at Flavio. They both have grasped what is going on.

"Get down there immediately, Flavio," Sindona barks.

"We are damned!" Flavio replies. He is too calm, though the lamp in his hand shakes as he smashes it against the mast on one side. Glass rains down, the sound loud despite the cracking of the sail in the wind.

"Why is that? It seems rather a nice day today." DaVinci remarks with false calm. Of course he would try to argue with a madman.

"This ship is full of sin!" Flavio shouts it the way a priest would at an unruly parish. "Gambling and fornicating, sinners, devils, all defying the Lord's will." He is enraged, an edge of hysteria in his voice, close to delirium. He nearly loses the lamp, but catches it before it can drop. "God has condemned you all!"

Riario's stomach cramps at the words, but he pushes himself forward.

"God helps those who help themselves," Sindona offers. He isn’t a devout man. Few sailors are, not as the Church would recognize.

"The Lord wants me to cleanse this ship!"

"So you had a nice conversation with him?" DaVinci asks.

"I will burn this den of sin, so not a single soul is left." Flavio raises the lamp to the sail and Riario holds his breath.

"Get down there immediately, or by God's bones, I will have you gutted like a fucking pig before I have you keel-hauled and fed to the fish." Ridiculous, weak threats. None of the men can reach Flavio in time. He will set fire to the main sail and even if they manage to extinguish it, they will be without any chance to ever reach land again.

Riario sees Vespucci and Zoroaster, motioning to one another in a throwing motion. They're climbing up steps on the other side of Riario.

"Stay where you are!" Flavio shouts at them. He looks down, his eyes blood-shot and crazed. Riario wonders if he drank salt water out of thirst. He sees Riario, but glances away immediately, dismissing him as not threatening. It smarts, no longer being seen as a force to be reckoned with, but as a mere cripple, harmless. It's the advantage Riario will use, however.

DaVinci keeps talking, trying to distract him while Vespucci and Zoroaster creep closer. Vespucci is trying to get at the harpoon while Zoroaster tries to use the sail for cover so he can get nearer. From the crow’s nest, Matteo is working his way down the rigging as well, a knife clenched between his teeth. Captain Sindona’s threats underscore everything. If Flavio isn’t killed on deck, he’ll be fed to the sharks.

"I will purify this ship with the Lord's fire. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, it will burn in the Lord's wrath." Flavio raises the lamp again. The flame flickers, seems to taste the sail. One large tongue of fire licks up. Sindona shouts in fear and disbelief.

Riario moves. They have no more time to waste with talk. He pushes up from the ground, ignoring the white-hot pain that lances through his leg, curls his hand in the rope and pulls himself up so he can reach high enough. Flavio glances down in disbelief. Before he has the time to react, Riario moves the sword in a tight arc. Sharp as DaVinci keeps it, it cuts through flesh and bone easily and Flavio's arm with the lamp drops to the deck. Screaming in pain and unable to hold on any longer, Flavio falls backwards, toward Riario, feet tangled in the rigging, head hanging low. Blood gouts from his stump down onto the deck. Riario strikes again, forceful, and Flavio's head drops to the deck with a dull thud. The screaming stops.

What follows is dead silence for a few breaths before Captain Sindona hollers for water buckets to be brought to extinguish the fire and save the sail.

Riario drops the sword and climbs down from the ropes. His left arm shakes; his leg is a white hot thing of agony. He makes it down without falling. Men push past him with buckets, water sloshing. They nearly knock him over in their haste.

From a distance, he catches Nico looking at him and can't make out if it is respect or disgust on his face.

It matters not. It was necessary to save them all.

He hobbles toward the stair to get out of the men's way. At the bottom of the stairs, DaVinci stands, staring at him.

"What?" Riario asks. He leans back a little, his chin raised in defiance.

"You …" DaVinci trails off, for once at a loss for words.

"I did what was necessary." Was it too much to expect some kind of gratitude?

"We could have –"

"What, talked him down?" Riario barks a laugh. "There was no time, Leonardo." He reaches for a rope to steady himself when his leg threatens to give out. Flavio's blood is on his hand and arm still, sticky and unpleasant. DaVinci moves to help him, but then takes a step back when he sees the stains on Riario. "Your precious Zoroaster was on his way to the harpoon."

"Is that supposed to make a difference? You were both ready to kill a man."

It's pouring oil on a fire, but Riario is angry and in pain, so he doesn't bite back on the muttered, "Says the man building machines of war."

DaVinci doesn't rise to the taunt; he looks sad instead. "There's a killer inside of you. No matter what I … what we …" He runs a hand over his face. "That will never change, will it?"

_"I can fix your soul."_ It's like they can both hear the echo of DaVinci's words, spoken in earnest, weeks ago.

Riario straightens his shoulders, though it feels as though DaVinci stabbed him in the bowels with a blunt knife. "You knew who I was from the start." 'When you took me to your bed,' Riario doesn't say. "I never pretended to be anything else."

DaVinci's eyes widen, his mouth opens a little but no sound comes out. He looks horrified, repulsed. Worse, he looks disappointed. Disappointed that he failed. Riario did not change, not in all the ways DaVinci clearly wanted him to. The wolf inside of him remains. Riario is not enough. He never will be.

Riario cannot look at DaVinci for even another blink of an eye. He turns away, only to be caught by Captain Sindona who claps him on the shoulder hard enough Riario has to fight a wince. His shoulders are as sore as his leg is. " Good thing those damn fencing lessons had a point. Thank you, Count."

Riario resists the urge to turn back to DaVinci to see his reaction.

***

Nico avoids meeting Riario directly the days following the incident with Flavio, though he watches him from a distance, up from the crow's nest he has volunteered to man.

With DaVinci steering clear of him as well, Riario spends his days alone, his posture straight and perfectly regal, his body language alone forbidding anyone around him to come closer. The sailors make way for him when he gives the day's calculations to Captain Sindona. Nico watches him longer and looks through the disguise – all alone, Riario looks brittle and lost.

Just before he disappears into the officer's cabin to sleep, Nico catches Riario crossing himself and it looks as if the gesture is foreign, nothing more than muscle memory.

After a long stay in the crow's nest two days later, cold and wet from the drizzle that set in an hour ago, his eyes sore from staring at the endless leaden colour of the sea, Nico climbs down from the crow's nest with his joints creaky and his limbs in pins and needles. Halfway down, he stops, however: Vespucci is moving toward where Riario is sitting near the mizenmast, slowly chewing his ration of dried fish, a precious cup full of rainwater sitting next to him on the deck.

"I'm glad my tincture of opium wasn't wasted on you," Vespucci says as he sits down next to Riario, legs stretched out on the deck.

The wind drifts their conversation easily toward where Nico is clinging to the ropes.

Riario looks over his shoulder and at the metal flask Vespucci is holding out toward him.

"More opium?" Nico hears.

"It's life water, you wanker." Liquor. The bastard, Vespucci. He swore up and down that he was out last time DaVinci asked him.

Riario takes the peace offering as it is, takes a deep drink – without coughing, as Nico would have – and hands the bottle back to Vespucci after. Much to Nico's surprise, Vespucci pushes Riario's hand back.

"Zo and Leo, they don't get it, half-witted moon-calves that they are, but you saved us."

Riario inclines his head, slow and regal.

"The boy, on the other hand..." Vespucci makes a noise that's like a respectful grunt. "Nico is smarter."

Nico blushes despite himself. Amerigo Vespucci, Nico has noticed in the time spent together on the _Sentinel_ , is quick with his judgement, but he's a good judge of character. It flatters Nico to hear that Vespucci thinks well of him.

"Did you know that he was on his way to get the crossbow?"

_No_ , Nico thinks. _No, don't._

"If you hadn't been faster, he would have shot the bastard down."

Damn it to hell. Nico had not wanted anyone to know about that. He's still not sure how he feels about the easy way his hand pulled the bow string tight and slotted the bolt into place, the way he aimed at Flavio – a sailor he had caught fish and sung raucous songs with on long evenings – ready to shoot metal into his head.

Below, Riario turns slowly. Vespucci keeps looking at him, taxing. "Looks like your teachings are falling on fertile ground," Vespucci says. He doesn't sound condemning the way Zo does.

"It appears so," Riario agrees. "Though I believe that Nico always had the ability to take action when necessary. I am merely helping him see his potential."

Nico rests his head against the ropes and closes his eyes. Riario's words are both flattering and frightening. His potential. His potential for what? For tactical thinking or cold-blooded murder? Is this the world Riario wants to prepare him for, to survive in? A world in which you have to kill to reach your goals?

"You're a dangerous pair, you two," Vespucci sounds impressed rather than worried. "Or should I say you three?"

Something hot washes through Nico's body. For just a few breaths, he sees himself and Riario and DaVinci, taking the world in a storm. He knows that Vespucci is right. With DaVinci's genius, Nico's practical thinking and Riario's propensity for ruthlessness and intricate, strategic political games, they would be unstoppable. The idea is as glorious as it is frightening and Nico breathes hard against the elation rising in him. Zo and Maestro Verrocchio would be so disappointed if they could hear Nico's thoughts.

"What is it about you that draws people?" Vespucci asks Riario. "First Nico, then Leo. Even Sindona has a sweet spot for you. If this ship is at sea any longer, you will have the whole crew wrapped around your finger."

It's a testament to Vespucci's respect for Riario that he doesn't say Riario would be fucking the whole crew. He'd be wrong at any rate. Riario is like a grey wolf in that regard. Nico doubts that any man except his maestro will ever touch Riario without risking losing his life.

"He's just prettier than you, Amerigo," DaVinci says as he steps out of the ward room, clearly having heard Vespucci's last question.

Vespucci gives him the middle finger and makes a rude sound DaVinci doesn't hear because he keeps walking toward Captain Sindona.

"Trouble in paradise?" Vespucci asks, his gaze following DaVinci. He has a sly look on his face. "I haven't heard you two since that incident."

Even from his elevated position, Nico sees that Riario's face gives far too much away before he manages to plaster a smile on his face. Nico almost pities him.

"I believe it is none of your business."

"Hey," Vespucci makes a placating gesture. "Zo says that a well-fucked Leo is one that gets less ideas in his head that mean trouble."

Nico fights a cough. It sounds like a Zo thing to say, but he can't really believe Zo would say that and mean Riario.

"So whatever it is you two have going between you," Vespucci says, "I'd prefer it if you went back to fucking. Or talking. Or braiding each other's hair."

"What was your point here, Vespucci?"

Nico wonders the same thing.

"Oh, pretty straightforward, really," Vespucci says and grabs the bottle. He takes a deep swig and pulls a face when he swallows. "One: Thank you. Two: Talk to the boy. Three: do me a favour and fuck that madman so he doesn't keep us at sea." He gets up, stuffs the bottle into the back of his trousers and dusts off his hands.

"Tell me, Vespucci," Riario says, the typical undercurrent of amusement shadowing his words, though Nico has learned by now that underneath, Riario's temper is boiling. "Did you have the same conversation with DaVinci?"

"I'm not an idiot," Vespucci laughs. "Leo would bite my head off."

"And you were certain I wouldn't?" Though he tries to mask it, there's a an undercurrent in Riario's voice. To be considered the smaller risk must smart.

Vespucci winks and trundles down the staircase. "Nah. But you'd use a sword. It's a quicker death."

Riario smiles without humour, leans his head against the gunwale and closes his eyes. He looks tired and washed out.

Nico uses his chance to quietly climb down the ropes, hoping to disappear without being noticed. His feet have barely touched the ground when Riario says behind him, "I was wondering when you would come down."

Nico's shoulders droop. Damn it. He both doesn't want to be chastised for listening and even more, he doesn't want to talk about what Riario heard Vespucci say about Flavio.

Salvatore, his replacement in the crow's nest, pushes Nico to the side, closer to Riario, with a growl. "About time." He reaches for the ropes and gives Nico a dark look. "How much longer did you want to hang there like a monkey?" He climbs up the rope with more speed and grace than Nico likely ever will.

"Would you care for some fish?" Riario says. He pushes his plate toward Nico – a gesture of quiet generosity. The last fish they caught was a week ago. They're running short on food. "You must be hungry."

Sitting with Riario will mean talking about what Vespucci said and Nico is more certain than anything that he's not ready for that yet. He needs time, time to think through what made him tap into such a ruthlessly tactical part of himself. He doesn't blame Riario, he just can't be around him now.

"I'm not in the mood for your company," he says, sounding much harsher than he intended.

Riario's face falls before he catches himself, raw, naked hurt visible for a blink of an eye. Nico wants nothing but to take his words back. The mask slips on easily, however. Riario keeps pushing his plate in Nico's direction. "Take the fish." He gets up with visible difficulty. His leg is healing, but it will be months before he will walk the way he used to. Fight the way he used to. "I bid you a good night."

His posture is so straight, his every move so tightly controlled Nico's own back hurts just to look at it.

"Riario," Nico calls when Riario is halfway down the stairs. It feels wrong to let him go. It would be easy to just sit with him, talk about something else. Avoid the subject but be there.

"Enjoy your meal," Riario says, his voice light as though making polite conversation at a noble banquet. It makes Nico want to scream. "And sleep well."

When Riario crosses himself before entering the cabin this time, the gesture looks more natural.


	13. Nine Weeks and Six Days

**Nine Weeks and Five Days**

The closer they come to the end of their journey, the more distracted and frustrated DaVinci becomes. He gives up the course calculations to Riario completely, takes apart the brazen head and barely shows up in the cabin. The distance between them is growing and Riario has no idea how to bridge it.

They make first landfall to take on fresh water and food at La Gomera.

Riario stays on board. His leg hurts with the change in weather and he did not feel like hobbling along, receiving either pitying or despiteous looks from the men. No one asked him to accompany them, either. DaVinci was the first in the rowboat, not looking back once. A new discovery lies ahead. Of course he is the first to go.

It's quiet on the _Sentinel_ with just a few sailors manning it in a way it hasn't been in over nine weeks. Riario soaks up the peace and quiet amidst the familiar sounds of the gently swaying ship, the chance to not be under anyone's watchful eye. He indulges himself and looks at the bizarre beauty of the island, shadowed ravines that plunge into the sea in between tall, forbidding mountains that he knows from books were once volcanoes. It's beautiful; the green soothing to the eye. The men pull the rowboat ashore and fall to their knees on the beach's black sand, praying. The wind blows fresh and cold from the island and carries the distant sound of a lone churchbell, sweet and comforting. He hasn't prayed in weeks. Maybe it is time to start again.

There's a peace in this voluntary solitude that he enjoys. He closes his eyes and drifts, trying to recover words he thought he'd lost.

***

"MEAT!" Zoroaster's shout makes Riario twitch out of the light slumber he had fallen into. "Who wants a roasted pigeon?"

A cheer explodes from the two remaining sailors on the ship.

It should be a blessing, having fresh food, fresh fruit and water again, but so close to home after a journey that felt endless, even timeless, the reminder of impending normalcy is a curse rather than a blessing. He needs to make a decision, and soon.

He's not ready to face what awaits him when he returns to Italy. Not ready to choose which way to go.

He moves under deck, out of the line of sight of the jubilant crew who returns and begins to cook immediately.

DaVinci comes back to the cabin, windswept, his hair wet. He smells clean. He doesn't say anything; his look half-disappointed, half aggravated to find Riario here instead of outside.

Riario can't take the reproach, so he steps up, ready to kiss DaVinci in the way he knows will make DaVinci a willing participant to whatever pleasure lies ahead.

DaVinci takes a step back. He doesn't look at Riario when he says, "I'm needed outside."

Riario's chest feels tight. His hands claw into his leg. "Of course."

He remains in the cabin while the scent of roasted meat drifts through the cracks in the cabin and he realises that he is hungry beyond belief. He doesn't go out, though. Hunger is nothing new.

The _Sentinel_ continues its way toward Pisa.

***

Long after the sun has set and Riario has retired, the cabin door squeaks open. Riario knows the weight and sound of DaVinci's steps. He does not turn, even though he wants to; instead he waits, holding his breath.

DaVinci slips into bed beside Riario, curls around him and presses a cold, cold hand over Riario's heart. He smells of iodine and the night wind. Riario breathes in, slow, careful, feels his chest push against DaVinci's hand. He's aware of every point of contact between their bodies, of DaVinci's body warming against Riario's own.

DaVinci answers the intake of breath and slips closer, the puff of air on his exhalation disturbing the hair at Riario's neck. Riario shivers when he feels DaVinci half hard against his behind.

They haven't talked in days and Riario feels the rift between them growing in body and mind. But here, now, DaVinci's hand moves slightly, fingertips gliding under the opening of Riario's shirt to touch his skin. Maybe, Riario thinks, desperate, maybe DaVinci has the same idea, so he twists around, takes the initiative and kisses DaVinci, hungry, deep, his hands buried in DaVinci's hair, he's pouring everything into the kiss.

DaVinci gasps a little, unprepared for the sudden fervour, but he lets Riario roll on top of him and opens his legs. Riario slots between them easily, the perfect fit of their bodies breaking him open wide. DaVinci pushes at Riario's shirt, even growls low under his breath when the fastenings on Riario's shirt don't cooperate and he can't manage to get the shirt past Riario's shoulders. The sound slides straight under Riario's armour and makes him snap his hips forward.

DaVinci pushes him back so he's sitting and Riario's heart half-stops, but all DaVinci does is remove his own shirt and breeches.

"Off," he growls and pulls at Riario's remaining clothes. "Off, now." In the warm light of the lantern, he looks hungry and intent.

Once they're both naked, they grope one another with a jarring, brutal intensity. There is nothing gentle about what they're doing, it's all rough, quick and primal, a stark difference to all the nights before. DaVinci flips him and pushes Riario's legs wide, spits on his hand and slicks Riario's hole. A hastily shoved in preparatory finger, gone too soon, too soon replaced by DaVinci's cock. DaVinci is not a small man and it hurts, but Riario accepts the burn, claws his fingertips into DaVinci's back and loses himself in DaVinci's scent, sweat and musk and the salty sea night in his hair. The small bed alcove rattles with the force of DaVinci's thrusts. Riario meets them, allows himself to be vocal, groan loud and wanton in the way he knows DaVinci likes, hopes against hope to find their lost connection again in the flesh at least.

DaVinci fucks him hard with his eyes closed, lost, unapproachable, the slap of their bodies loud. It's like DaVinci isn't even with him. His heart in his throat, Riario says, "Look. At. Me." He needs DaVinci to see, to see him for who he is, all of him, not just who DaVinci wants to see. He hears his own voice: rough, guttural, interrupted by the force of DaVinci's thrusts pushing the air out of his lungs.

DaVinci's eyes fly open and he tries to meet Riario's gaze but his eyes glaze over when he thrusts deep and, unwilling, Riario muscles clench around his cock. DaVinci groans and bends forward to suck a bruising kiss to the side of Riario's neck.

The zing of it goes straight from Riario's neck to his cock; he sucks in a sharp breath, feels DaVinci thrust again, harder, rougher yet, and comes, blinding, unwelcome, with a sound of pain he can't mask quickly enough.

It's then that DaVinci stops, freezes, his glazed eyes large. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. He's peppering kisses all over Riario's face. "God, I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Riario hears his own voice breathless, husky. "Be here." Despite his discomfort, he rolls his hips and, his eyes rolling back in his head, then closing, DaVinci follows him over the edge on a long drawn out moan.

Someone thumps against the wood of the officer's cabin. "For fuck's sake, you two."

Riario hears Nico give a scathing comment to the sailor and can't help the wave of shame that rolls over him. He is never this indiscreet.

DaVinci runs his hands over Riario, familiar in his afterglow; gentle now.

"I –" he begins.

"I know," Riario interrupts him, though he has no idea what it is DaVinci wants to say.

The rift between them is still there, even their bodies, connected in the most intimate way seem to be unable to bridge it. He doesn't want to talk now. He kisses DaVinci, once, lingering, then untangles himself. DaVinci's cock slide out of him, leaving Riario feeling empty and sore. He cleans off the worst of the mess on his stomach and behind, dresses and leaves the cabin. DaVinci calls his name but doesn't follow.

Riario sleeps under the stars that night and shivers from more than just the wind.


	14. Ten Weeks

**Ten Weeks**

"You two could at least close the damn hatch when you want to be this loud," Nico complains from up at the forecastle when Riario climbs the staircase the next day. "They'll hear you in Pisa before we even reach land." The Mediterranean sun glistens on his golden curls as he leans back and tries not to look at Riario. He has never commented on what is going on between DaVinci and Riario before and Riario doesn't understand why he starts now.

"We won't be at sea much longer," is all Riario lets himself answer.

"Just be more quiet," Nico says from his elevated position, sounding mulish. "Others only have their hands."

The sun on Nico's hair reminds him of a halo again and he thinks of the beginning of their journey on the _Sentinel_ , of liking Nico to Uriel.

_Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice,_ Riario remembers his baptismal verse _. He will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him._

He gives himself a mental shake: He is unpoised enough as it is and needs to tread some familiar ground. Training Nico has served him well in the past weeks at sea. "You haven't been training the past days," Riario says, careful to keep any reproach out of his voice.

Zoroaster's dark head appears beside Nico. "If you hadn't been busy hiding from the sun like a bat or fucking Leo, you would have noticed that his training progressed quite nicely."

Riario straightens. Did DaVinci take over Nico's training after all?

"How about you hobble up here and we show the cripple what real men can do, Nico?"

"Zo …" Nico looks reluctant and uncomfortable. He doesn't meet Riario's eyes.

"I am curious, Nico," Riario says, ignoring the mongrel's insult and makes his way up the short staircase to the forecastle. He finds that both Zoroaster and Nico have their swords in hand, something he couldn't see from the main deck. Sweat stains their shirts; they clearly must have been at it for some time. "Go ahead," he encourages with an inviting gesture even though he wants nothing but to take the sword from Zoroaster, whose posture is all wrong. "Show me."

Nico still looks reluctant but ready to show off as well. He falls into the position Riario taught him, his footwork excellent. He keeps looking at Riario for approval, nearly losing his footing.

"Concentrate," Riario calls.

Nico frowns, then corners Zoroaster easily and strikes high, but instead of continuing the fight by using the rapier as Riario taught him, his actual attack is a hard kick to Zoroaster's midsection, his sword raised to intercept against Zoroaster's sword who saw the attack coming. The metal clangs loud, drawing more sailors near.

Zoroaster lunges and Nico parries, quickly, efficiently, in a way Riario never had a chance to teach him due to his injury and his inability to move this quickly. Riario is actually impressed by the mongrel's teachings and that makes watching Nico's success even worse.

"What's this?" DaVinci appears on the forecastle as well. He stands besides Riario and asks, "I thought you were teaching Nico?"

"He did," Nico calls over the clanging of their rapiers. "But you distracted him, so Zo took over."

"Who needs a pompous Roman when you have a resourceful best friend around?" Zoroaster shouts toward DaVinci. He looks at Riario, though, his gaze hard and unforgiving.

"Who needs a pompous Roman and a resourceful best friend when you have an ambidextrous genius around?" DaVinci asks, laughing, grabs an extra rapier and jumps right in, flamboyant, over the top and agile as a cat. The mock-fight moves from the forecastle to the main deck. The sailors have stopped working, even Captain Sindona watches with interest.

Riario remains on the forecastle, forgotten. He does not keep watching, barely hears the cheers erupt when DaVinci – naturally – wins the fight.

A fresh meal of roasted goat and bread is served after. Riario watches the men eat from where he's sitting on the forecastle. He's lost his appetite.

Zoroaster climbs up the stairs to the forecastle later that evening, chewing on a piece of meat. "You're still here?" He asks. "Now that's a way to ruin a man's appetite." He spits a bone overboard.

"You will only need to suffer my presence a few more days," Riario replies. He's tired. Too tired to verbally spar with the mongrel. "I'm certain you will survive."

"Won't that be the happiest day of my fucking life."

Riario doesn't bother answering. The mongrel doesn't really want an answer anyway.

"You can ignore me all you want," Zoroaster says, "but I know something you don't."

"And what is that?" Riario asks, weary.

"As soon as Leo sets foot on Italian soil, he will find another toy, something, someone else to capture his interest. His mind is too big to be held captive by just one person."

Riario's stomach plummets from a great height. This is confirmation for everything he has feared. He barely manages to slip on the familiar mask of condescension. "Thank you," he squeezes around the lump in his throat, "for sharing your infinite wisdom."

"Oh, fuck you, Riario," Zoroaster says, lashing out now. "Neither Nico nor Leo need a damn cripple around. Especially not when we're back in Florence. You were better off with your Church," he scoffs, "they take pity on hopeless cases, don't they."

***

DaVinci returns to their cabin late at night, smelling and tasting of fresh wine. He insists that Riario eats some of the food he brings. The grapes are a sweet-tart burst on Riario's tongue after the weeks of hard tack and fish and his eyes roll back in pleasure. It is so good to be eating proper food again.

DaVinci smiles at him with a tinge of abashment, then kisses Riario, slow, careful and as though he is apologising. Riario can't help but wonder if that's because DaVinci is already saying farewell. Maybe the mongrel was right and Riario is no longer enough. He does not know how their arrangement will continue once they reach Pisa and he dreads the moment they will disembark the _Sentinel_.

Later that night, he keeps DaVinci on the edge of his orgasm for endless moments and when he lets him fall, he finally, finally feels DaVinci be with him. DaVinci shakes apart in his arms, calls his name when he comes. He looks light and happy after, kisses Riario with abandon and talks of time again. Riario replies and they talk long, exchanging ideas as though nothing has changed. He relaxes a fraction. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Zoroaster was wrong.

For the first time since they started this, Riario considers what they're doing lovemaking rather than mere sex, a romantic, foolish notion he can't contain.

DaVinci brings him to a toe-curling orgasm that leaves him gasping. While he is still trying to catch his breath, he feels DaVinci idly paint his fingers along the cooling sweat on his back, writing on Riario's skin as he does so often. It takes Riario a little to catch what it is this time. A long, familiar name.

Lucrezia.

Riario's heart stops beating for a few, painful moments in which Zoroaster's words clang around in his head like the wooden clapper in a cracked church bell.

With his lips still resting against DaVinci's collarbone, he breathes low and slow against the wail of disbelief that wants to claw its way free of his chest. The mongrel was right.

"This experiment is finished, is it not?" he asks, seeking confirmation for what he doesn't want to believe.

Experiment. _Expirere_. To learn from experience. Experience, _learning_ comes with pain. From pain. How could he have forgotten?

"Hmn?"

Riario feels DaVinci's attention wander even as their bodies are still connected in the most intimate of ways and the realisation is brutal: He was a fool to believe. To _hope_. One more idol followed, one more mistake. What was it he said in the New World? The mind plays shameful tricks when we want something too much. _Christ_ , he wishes it would hurt less.

"We will reach Pisa soon," he says as he untangles himself from DaVinci. "It would be prudent if we discontinued this."

"What?"

Riario pulls on his trousers and shirt, tightening both enough he finds it hard to breathe. The cut of fabric into his skin keeps him alert. "I shall sleep in the cargo hold with the other men tonight."

DaVinci reaches out and catches his wrist. "Girolamo, what – "

"Unhand me, please."

No more, everything in Riario echoes dully as DaVinci lets go of his wrist, the warm, familiar touch gone. No more. Riario straightens his collar as well as his shoulders and tries not to double over from the pain that floods his body. It was false hope.

A pipe dream. All of it. Zita was wrong. No one looks at him, _keeps_ looking at him and sees grace. Not even DaVinci. He should have known. His father was right all along. He is but an instrument. To be used and discarded, to be saved by no one but the Church. This is his destiny.

"Mene Tekel," he murmurs as he opens the cabin's door and stares into a blinding red sunrise.

_God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end, you have been weighed ... and found wanting._

Finis


End file.
